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Copyright N° I 

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The Love That Prevailed 


By 

F. FRANKFORT MOORE 

i • 

Author of 

“ The Jessamy Bride “I Forbid the Bans," '■'‘The Fatal Gift 
“ The Millionaire ," “ Our Fair Daughter etc., etc. 




Illustrated by H. B. Matthews. 


9 

* 1 * 

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New York 

Empire Book Company 

PUBLISHERS 





LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

AU(i 24 1907 

- Copyright Entry 

AfM >V^7 

CLASS 4 XXc/No. 
/%ST2_<t>*o 
COPY A. 


Copyright, 1907, by 
F. Frankfort Moore. 


All rights reserved. 


The Love that Prevailed 


CHAPTER I 

“ The old church ways be good enough for me,” 
said Miller Pendelly as he placed on the table a 
capacious jug of cider, laying a friendly left hand 
on the shoulder of Jake Pullsford, the carrier, as 
he bent across the side of the settee with the high 
back. 

“ I ne’er could see aught that was helpful to the 
trade of a smith in such biasses as the Quakers, to 
name only one of the new-fangled sects,” said Hal 
Holmes, the blacksmith, shaking his head seriously. 
“ So I holds with Miller.” 

“A y, that’s the way too many of ye esteems a 
religion — ‘ Will it put another crown in my 
pocket?’ says you. If ’t puts a crown in your 
pocket, ’tis a good enough religion ; if ’t puts half- 
a-crown in your pocket, ’tis less good; if ’t puts 
naught in your pocket, that religion is good for 
naught.” 

The speaker was a middle-aged man with a pair 
of large eyes which seemed to vary curiously in 
colour, sometimes appearing to be as grey as steel, 
and again of a curious green that did not suit 
everybody’s taste in eyes. But for that matter, 
Jake Pullsford, the carrier, found it impossible to 
meet everybody’s taste in several other ways. He 
had a habit of craning forward his head close to 
the face of anyone to whom he was speaking, and 


6 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


this movement had something of an accusing air, 
about it — occasionally a menacing air — which was 
distinctly distasteful to most people, particularly 
those who knew that they had good reason to be 
accused or to be menaced. 

“ Jake Pullsford goes about the world calling his 
best friends liars without the intent to hurt their 
feelings,” was the criticism passed upon him by 
Miller Pendelly. Other critics were not so sure on 
the subject of his intent. He had never shown 
himself to be very careful of the feelings of his 
friends. 

“ The religion that puts naught in thy pocket is 
good for naught — that’s what you be thinking of, 
Hal Holmes,” he said, thrusting his head close to 
the face of the smith. But the smith did not mind. 
The man that spends most of his days hammering 
out and bending iron to his will, usually thinks 
good-naturedly of one who uses words and phrases 
as arguments. 

“I don’t gainsay thee, Jake,” he replied. “If 
you know what’s in my thought better than I do 
myself, you be welcome to the knowledge.” 

“ I meant not thee in special, friend,” said Jake. 
“ What I say is that there are too many in these 
days that think of religion only for what it may 
bring to them in daily life — folk that make a gain 
of godliness.” 

“ And a right good thing to make a gain of, says 
I,” remarked the miller with a confidential wink 
into the empty mug which he held — it had been 
full a moment before. 

“ Ay, you be honest, miller: you allow that I am 
right and you have courage enough to praise what 
the Book condemns,” said Jake. 

“ Look ’ee here, friend,” said the miller, in his 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 7 

usual loud voice — the years that he had spent in 
his mill had caused him to acquire a voice whose 
tone could successfully compete with the creaking 
and clattering of the machinery. “ Look ’ee here, 
friend Jake, ’twould be easy enough for you or me 
that has done moderate well for ourselves in life, to 
turn up our eyes in holy horror at the bare thought 
of others being godly for what they may gain in 
daily life, but for myself, I would not think that 
I was broaching a false doctrine if I was to say to 
my son, t Young man, be godly and thou’ll find it 
to bring gain to thee.’ What, Jake, would ’ee have 
a man make gain out of ungodliness? ” 

“Ay, that’s a poser for him, miller: I’ve been 
thinking for that powerful proposal ever since the 
converse began,” said a small man who had sat 
silently smoking in a high-backed chair. He was 
one who had the aspect of unobtrusiveness, and a 
figure that somehow suggested to strangers an 
apologetic intention without the courage ever to 
put it in force. His name was Richard Pritchard, 
and he was by profession a water-finder — a practi- 
tioner with the divining rod, but one whose suc- 
cesses were never startling. 

When he had spoken, all the room, to the number 
of three, turned anxious eyes upon him, as if they 
were surprised at his having gone so far and feared 
a painful sequel. He seemed to feel that he had 
justified their worst forebodings, and hastened to 
relieve their minds. 

“ I’m all friendly, friends, and Jake in especial,” 
he said. “ Don’t forget that though a man on the 
spur of the moment, and in the fierce stress of 
argyment, may say a bitter hard word or two, there 
may still be naught in his bosom’s heart but neigh- 
bourly friendship, meaning no offence to you, Jake, 


8 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


that be a travelled man, viewing strange cities 
quite carelessly, where plain and simple men would 
gape and stare.” 

Jake, the carrier, gave no sign of having heard 
the other speak. 

“ There’s a many o’ us in these parts as strong as 
in other parts, that be ready and willing to take 
things as they come,” said he ; “ to take the parson’s 
preaching as they take the doctor’s pills.” 

“ Ay, wi’ a wry face,” acquiesced the blacksmith 
with a readiness that one could see the carrier 
thought meant no good. 

He leant across the table once more until his 
face was close to the smith’s, and said : 

“ That’s where you be wrong, Hal Holmes. You 
know as well as the most knowledgable ” 

“ Meaning yourself, Jake? ” said the smith drily. 

“ You know well that though you may make a 
wry face when gulching down the doctor’s pill, ye 
dursn’t so much as show a wrinkle or a crinkle on 
your face when Parson Rodney is in his pulpit,” 
replied the carrier with emphasis. 

“ ’Cause why? ” said the miller. “ I’ll tell ye 
truly — ’tis because the parson gives us no bitter 
pills, only ” 

“ That’s what I’ve been leading up to,” cried the 
carrier triumphantly. “ The parson, like thou- 
sands of the rest of his cloth throughout the length 
and breadth o’ the land, is content to preach pleas- 
ant things only, even as the false prophets of Israel 
prophesied fair things.” 

“ And why shouldn’t he be content to preach 
pleasant things, friend Jake, if so be that we be 
content to hear them? and for myself I would 
muchly listen to an hour of pleasant things — ay, 
rather than half an hour of unhappy ones.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


9 


“Ah, miller, what would you say if the doctor, 
who, when he saw your body suffering from a 
canker, gave you a sugar-plum and withheld his 
knife from cutting out the plague spot because you 
were apt to be squeamish at the sight of blood- 
letting ! ” 

There was an uneasy pause when the carrier had 
asked this rehearsed question. He asked it with a 
triumphant air, and, as if he felt it to be too large a 
question to be answered by the miller single- 
handed, he, as it were, swept the whole company 
by a glance into his interrogation. 

The water-finder made a motion with his hands 
as if trying to smooth away an imaginary rough- 
ness in the air. There was a general feeling that 
the carrier had triumphed in his argument. He 
was one of those people who, by speaking in an air 
of triumph, succeed in making some people believe 
that they have triumphed. The farmer shook his 
head with the disinterestedness of an arbitrator. 
The smith continued looking into the empty mug 
from which he had just drunk. The silence lasted 
several seconds, and every second of course added 
to the triumph of the carrier. The man was not, 
however, adroit enough to perceive this. He was 
indiscreet enough to break the silence. When his 
eyes had gone round the company they returned to 
the miller. 

“ Answer me that question, man ! ” he cried, and 
then everyone knew that he had not triumphed : the 
last word had not been said. 

“ Fll answer you when you tell me if you 
wouldn’t bear friendly feelings for a doctor who 
gives you a sugar plum instead of blooding you 
when he finds you reasonable well,” said the miller. 

“ ’Tis when a man feels healthiest that he stands 


10 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


most in need of blooding,” said Jake, not very 
readily and not very eagerly. “ And so it is in the 
health of the soul. ‘ Let him that thinketh he 
stand take heed lest he fall.’ Friends, is there one 
among us that can lay his hand on his heart and 
say that he believes that our parsons do their duty 
honestly and scripturally.” 

“ It took you a deal o’ time to lead us up to that 
point: you’d best ha’ blurted it out at once,” re- 
marked Hal Holmes. 

“ Nay, we all knew that it was a-coming,” said 
the farmer. “ Since Jake found himself as far 
away from home as Bristol city, he has never lost a 
chance of a dig at the parsons.” 

“ I don’t deny that my eyes were opened for the 
first time at Bristol,” said Jake. “ Bristol was my 
Damascus, farmer.” 

The farmer gave a jerk to his head, for the car- 
rier had laid undue emphasis upon the first syllable 
of the name. 

“ So bad as that? ” he whispered. 

The blacksmith laughed. 

“ Not so bad, farmer,” he said. “ ’Tis only our 
neighbour Jake that compares himself with St. 
Paul, the Apostle.” 

“I heard the profanity. He would ha’ done 
better to abide at home,” said the farmer severely. 

The blacksmith laughed again. 

“ There fell, as it were, scales from my eyes when 
I heard preaching for the first time — when I heard 
a parson for the first time,” resumed the carrier, 
looking out of a window, and apparently uncon- 
scious of any of the remarks of his friends. “ Ay, 
’twas for the first time, albeit I had scarce missed 
church for a whole Sunday since I were a lad. 
That was wliat struck me most, neighbours — that 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 11 


I could go Sunday after Sunday, in good black 
clotli, too, and hear the holy service read, in a sort 
of way, and the sacred psalms sung, while the fiddle 
and the double bass and the viol made sweet music, 
and yet have no real and true yearning after the 
truth, seems little short of a miracle, doesn’t it? ” 

“ Not when one knows that your heart was hard, 
Jake — ay, sir, it must ha’ been harder than steel,” 
said the blacksmith, shaking his head in mock 
gravity. 

“You scoff, smith, you scoff, I know; but you 
speak the truth unwittingly,” said the carrier with 
some sadness. “ My heart was like the nether mill- 
stone — your pardon, miller, I meant not to say a 
word that would cast a slight upon your calling: 
? tis right for your nether millstone to be hard.” 

“ The harder the better, and no offence, neigh- 
bour,” said the miller generously. 

“None was meant, sir,” said the carrier. “We 
were discoursing of my heart — hard — hard. And 
I was a reader o’ the Book all my life. That’s the 
strange thing; but I sought not to understand what 
I read and I got no help from parson — no, nor yet 
from Archdeacon Eaton, that I listened to twice — 
no, nor the Dean himself in his own Cathedral at 
Exeter. With the new light that came to me, I 
was able to perceive that their discourse was a vain 
thing — not helpful to a simple man who thought 
something of himself, albeit jangling with the other 
tinkling cymbals every Sunday, kneeling (on the 
knees of my body) when we called ourselves miser- 
able sinners. Miserable sinners! I tell ye, friends, 
I gave no thought to the words. I slurred through 
the General Confession at a hand gallop — just the 
pace that parson gets into when he warms to his 
work.” 


12 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ There’s few left of the cloth and none of the 
laity can pass parson when he gets warmed to it. 
To hear him in the Litany is like watching him go 
’cross country when he be mounted on King George , 
his big roan,” said the blacksmith reflectively. 

“ There’s none rides straightlier,” said the 
farmer. “ And there’s no better or steadier flyer 
than King George, first foal to my mare Majesty. 
When I heard that parson had need of a flyer that 
was a flyer, after poor Gossip broke her neck at the 
Lyn and her master’s left arm, I held back, not be- 
ing wishful to put myself for’ard, though I knew 
what I knew, and knew that parson knew all I 
knew and maybe more ; but he got wind o’ the foal, 
and then ” 

“ One at a time, farmer — one at a time is fair 
play between friends,” said the miller, nodding in 
the direction of Jake, who had suffered the inter- 
ruption very meekly. 

“ Your pardon, friend,” said the farmer. “ Only 
’twas yourself brought in the parson’s pace. For 
myself, I think all the better of the cloth that rides 
straight to hounds.” 

“ ‘ Miserable sinners,’ ” said the carrier, picking 
up the thread which he had perforce dropped. “ I 
tell ye, neighbours, that there’s no need for any 
parson, be he a plain Vicar or of high rank such as 
a Dean — nay, a consecrated Bishop — no, I’m not 
going too far, miller — I say in cool blood and in no 
ways excited, a consecrated Lord Bishop — I say 
that not one of them need travel in discourse all 
his pulpit life, beyond that text ‘ Miserable sin- 
ners.’ That was his text — the one I heard at 
Bristol. i Miserable sinners.’ For the first time 
in my life I knew what the words meant. I felt 
them — I felt them — words of fire — I tell ye that I 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 13 


felt them burn into me. That was at first — when 
he began to preach; a red-hot iron brand stinging 
me all over, and before he had done I felt as if all 
my poor body had been seared over and over again 
with red-hot letters that go to the spelling of ‘ mis- 
erable sinners You mind Joe Warden’s trial 
when we were lads, and how he was branded in the 
forehead and right hand before he was sent to the 
pillory. He uttered neither cry nor moan when 
the hot iron burst his skin ” 

“ I smell the smell o’t in my nose this moment,” 
said the water-finder gently. The farmer nodded. 

“ But the look that was on his face when he stood 
up there a marked man forever ! ” cried the original 
speaker. “It told everyone that had eyes what the 
man felt, and that was how I felt, multiplied an 
hundred fold, when my preacher had done with me. 
I felt from the first that he had singled out me — 
only me out of all that assembly, and when he had 
done with me, I say that I could feel myself feeling 
as Joe Warden felt, the rebel who suffered for 
slandering the King’s Majesty.” 

“ ’Tis no marvel that the man has had most of 
the church doors banged in ’s face, if so be that he 
makes genteel churchgoers with ordinary failings 
to feel so unwholesome,” remarked the smith. 

“ And so you corned away,” said the farmer. 
“ Well, I wouldn’t look back on it as if I was satis- 
fied. If I want that sort o’ preaching I’ll e’en 
throw myself prone on my nine-acre field when the 
seed’s in, and command my man Job to pass the 
harrow o’er the pelt o’ my poor carcase.” 

“ I’ve only told you of that part of his sermon 
that made one feel sore and raw with hot wounds 
all over,” said Jake. “ That was one part. I told 
you not of the hand that poured soothing oil and 


14 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


precious ointment into the wounds — that came 
after. And the oil was as holy soothing as what 
ran down over Aaron’s beard even unto the skirts 
of his garment, and the ointment was as precious 
as Mary Magdalen’s of spikenard — in the alabaster 
box, whose odour filled the whole house. The 
whole life of me became sweetened with the blessed 
words that fell from his lips. I felt no longer the 
sting of the brand of the truth that had made me 
to tingle all over. Oh, the dew of Hermon’s holy 
hill was not more soothing than the words of gra- 
cious comfort that came from him. I had a sense 
of being healed and made whole. The joy of it! A 
cup of cold spring water when one has toiled 
through a long hot harvest day. Oh, more than 
that. The falling of a burden from off my 
shoulders like the great burden of Christian, the 
Pilgrim; and then the joy — the confidence — the 
surety — I cannot tell you how I felt — ’tis over much 
for me, neighbours — over much for me to attempt.” 

“ Say no more, Jake; you have made a good 
enough trial for such as us,” said the miller, lay- 
ing his hand on the carrier’s shoulder, and speak- 
ing only after a long pause. The others of the 
party began to breathe again, some of them very 
audibly. 

The carrier’s eyes were shining with an expres- 
sion his friends had never before seen them wear. 
He had been swept away by the force and fervour 
of his words, and like one who has been breathing 
of a rarer atmosphere than that of the plain, he 
gasped for several moments, and then there was a 
sob in his throat. He went quickly to the door and, 
letting into the room the sudden glow of a beauti- 
ful Spring sunset, he passed into the open air, with- 
out speaking another word. 


CHAPTER II 


No one in the room had watched the man except 
in a furtive way, after he had spoken, although 
while he was speaking every eye had been fixed 
upon him. The sight of the effect of a great emo- 
tion makes some people feel strangely abashed, 
and the miller and his friends were among such 
persons. When the carrier had gone they re- 
mained silent for some time. Each of them seemed 
to be thinking his thoughts. 

“ Poor Jake ! ” said the miller at last. “ He was 
ever the sort of man that would be like to have a 
twist, and he hath got one now. He’s made us 
forget the cider, lads. Blest if the jug has been 
touched since Jake began his story ! Hal, man, pass 
the jug to your neighbour. ’Tis Jake that should 
have swallowed a mouthful before he left: talking 
is drouthier work than listening.” 

The smith passed on the jug of cider without re- 
plenishing his own mug; and then knocked the ashes 
out of the bowl of his pipe. 

“ I don’t know that there’s a deal in all this,” he 
remarked. “ What do you say, miller? ” 

“ I don’t say nought : I only looks on,” replied 
the miller cautiously. 

“ Ay, that may be,” said the smith. “ We all 
know Jake. He never wronged his fellow 7 — nay, 
there’s some of us know r s that if the w r orst came to 
the worst w ith us, Jake ’ud be the first to hold out 
a helping hand, with a guinea or two in it, as the 
case may be. Still there may be something in what 

15 


16 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


he said about being brought to feel himself a mis- 
erable sinner.” 

“ He allowed that the preacher on’y kept him in 
that suspensory way o’ thought for a brief space,” 
said the miller. 

“ Ay, there’s men that be mortal sinners, and for 
all that their luck is tremendous and saves 
’em from the eye of their fellow-men,” said the 
smith. 

“ I feel bound to say this to the credit o’ parson,” 
remarked the water-finder with deprecatory 
suavity : “ he never makes a simple countryman feel 
himself to be a miserable sinner. He is of such a 
good nature that he slurs over the General Confes- 
sion so genteelly that I defy the wickedest of his 
churchful to feel in any ways as if parson was dic- 
tating the words to him.” 

“ That shows that parson’s heart be in the right 
place,” nodded the farmer. “He gives us all to 
understand at a glance that he reads the words 
’cause they are set down for him in the solemn 
prayer book, and hopes that there’s none among his 
hearers w r ho will hold him responsible as a man for 
their ungentility.” 

“ True, sir, true ; parson’s an am’able gentleman, 
always ’cepting when the cock he has hatched from 
the noblest game strain fails him in the first main,” 
said the blacksmith. 

“ And who is he that would be different, tell me 
that? ” cried the miller, who had fought a few cocks 
in the course of his life. “ Ay, we be well content 
wi’ parson, we be so ; but I don’t say that if Jake’s 
Bristol preacher came within earshot I would re- 
fuse to listen to him — only out o’ curiosity — only 
out o’ curiosity. But I do wonder much that a man 
o’ the steadiness o’ Jake Pullsford owning himself 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 17 

overcome by a parson that has no church of his 
own.” 

“ ’Tis as humble as allowing a toothache to be 
cured by a quack at a fair, when a wholesome 
Doctor of Physic, like Mr. Corballis, has wrestled 
with it for a whole week,” said the water-finder. 
“ I hope I haven’t offended any friend by my home- 
liness when the talk was serious,” he added, glanc- 
ing around, not without apprehension. 

No one took the trouble to say a word that might 
place him at his ease. The farmer took a hasty 
drink out of his mug, and sighed after. The black- 
smith cut up some tobacco and rolled it between his 
palms. There w r as a long silence in the room. It 
seemed as if the weakness which Jake, the carrier, 
had displayed had saddened the little company. 
It was pretty clear that they were all thinking of it. 

“ Hey, neighbours,” cried the miller at last, with 
a loud attempt to pull his friends together. “ Hey 
lads, what’s amiss? These be doleful dumps that 
have fallen on us. A plague on Jake and his quack 
preacher! Now, if I’m not better satisfied than 
ever with parson may I fail to know firsts from sec- 
onds by a sniff of the dust. Come, farmer, tell Hal 
what answer you gave to Squire’s young lady when 
she asked you if you made the cows drink wine 
wouldn’t they milk syllabub? He told me before 
you looked in, Hal! Droll, it was surely. You’d 
never think that the farmer had it in him.” 

“ Nay, nay,” said the farmer with a smile that 
broke up his face into the semblance of a coloured 
diagram of the canals in Mars. “ Nay, miller, 
’twas on the spur o’ the moment. I had no time to 
think o’ some ready reply that a young miss might 
think suitable to her station in life coming from a 
humble yeoman that has no learning but of tillage.” 


18 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ I’ll swear you’ll esteem it neat as a sheep’s 
tongue,” said the miller. “ Come, farmer, out with 
it, and don’t force me to spoil it i’ the telling.” 

“ Oh, well ” began the farmer, pursing out 

his lips and assuming the expression of one who is 
forced into a position of enviable prominence. 
“ Oh, well, ’twas o’ Tuesday last — or was it Mon- 
day, miller? ” 

“ You told me Monday,” replied the miller. 

“ Did I? Well, if I said Monday I sticks to it 
whatever may hap; for as ye know me, friends, I 
don’t go back on my word, even though I be wrong, 
that being my way, so to speak, that came natural 
to me ever since poor father said to me ” 

But the revelation as to the terms of his father’s 
discourse which had produced so lasting an impres- 
sion upon him, was not to be made at that time; 
for before the slow farmer had spoken, the porch 
door was opened, and there appeared against the 
background of the spring green side of the little 
valley slope, the figure of a young girl, rather tall, 
wearing a cloak by the lined hood of which her 
pretty face was framed. 

“ Hey,” cried the miller, “ this be an improve- 
ment. After all we won’t need your story, farmer.” 

“ Your servant, Master Miller — gentlemen, I am 
your most obedient to command now as ever,” said 
the girl, dropping a curtsey first to the miller, then 
to his guests. “ Oh, Master Hal, black but comely 
as usual, and rather more idle than usual. And 
Farmer Pendelly, too — fresh as a new-washed 
cherub on a tombstone. Master Pritchard, with 
his magic wand up his sleeve, I doubt not. I didn’t 
know that you was entertaining a party, miller, or 
I— I ” 

“ Don’t tell us that you would ha’ tarried, Nelly; 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 19 


that would be to pay a bad compliment to my com- 
pany as well as to me,” said the miller. 

“ I was about to say that I would have hurried, 
not tarried. Maybe I’ll not tarry even now, in 
spite of the attractions you hold out, sir.” 

While she spoke the girl conveyed the impression 
of making another general curtsey to the company, 
though she had merely glanced around at them with 
an inclusive smile. She made a pretty pretence 
of drawing her cloak around her — she had thrown 
back the hood immediately after entering the room 
— and made a movement towards the door. 

“ Don’t you dare to think of fleeing, hussy,” said 
the miller. “If you was to flee just now, there’s 
not one of us here that wouldn’t hale thee back by 
the hair o’ the head — and a nobler tow line couldn’t 
be found.” 

He had put his arms about her and patted her 
hair, which was the lightest chestnut in colour, and 
shining like very fine unspun silk. 

“ Hey, Nelly, where did ye pick up that head of 
hair, anyway? All your household be black as 
night,” he continued. 

“ Where’s the puzzle, sir? ” said she, without a 
suggestion of sauciness. “ I favour the night, too, 
only a moonlight night. My hair is the flash o’ 
moonlight.” 

“ The lass never was slack in speaking up for 
herself,” said the blacksmith. 

“ True, friend Hal ; but haven’t I ever been mod- 
erate? Have I ever gone even half-way to describe 
my own charms? ” said the girl with a mock seri- 
ousness that set everyone laughing — they roared 
when she looked at them more seriously still, as 
if reproving their levity. 

“ I’ll not stay here to be flouted,” she cried with 


20 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


a pout, giving the miller a pat on the cheek. “ Ah, 
here comes Sue to protect me. Dear Sue, you come 
in good time. Tell these gentlemen that I haven’t 
a red hair in my head, and as for its being good 
only to make towing lines of ” 

Here she broke down and fell sobbing into the 
arms of Susan Pendelly, a girl of about her own 
age, who had entered the room by the door that led 
to the parlour. For a few moments Susan was 
puzzled, for Nelly went through her piece of acting 
extremely well, but the laughter of the miller and 
the smith — the farmer and the water-finder were 
not quite sure, so they remained solemn — quickly 
let her know that Nelly was up to a prank, so she 
put her arms about her and pretended to soothe 
her, calling the men ill-mannered wretches, and 
shaking her fist at them. Susan was a little heavy 
and homely in her comedy. 

“ Towing line indeed ! ” she said, looking indig- 
nantly over Nelly’s bowed head at the men. “ Tow- 
ing line indeed! Why ’tis the loveliest hair in 
Cornwall.” 

“ A towing line,” said her father, laughing. “ A 
towing line that has drawn more craft in its wake 
than any twenty-oared galley of a man-o’-war. Oh, 
the poor fools that try to get a grip o’ that towing 
line ! Let me count them. First there was Spanish 
Roderick ” 

The girl lifted up her head from her friend’s 
shoulder. 

“ Spanish Roderigo the first ! ” she cried. “ Oh, 
miller, I did think that my reputation was safe in 
your keeping! Why, sir, there were three after 
me long before Roderigo showed his face at the 
Cove.” 

“ I ask your pardon, madam ; I did you an in- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 21 


justice; you began the towing business when you 
were twelve ” 

“ Ten, miller — ten, if you love me. You would 
not accuse a simple girl of wasting her time.” 

“ Once again, your pardon, miss. Fll make it 
nine, if so be that you wish.” 

“ I have no wish in the matter, sir. Fm nought 
but a simple country wench with no wish but to be 
let live in peace.” 

“ Tell us how many lads are dangling after you 
at the present moment, Nell — dangling like mack- 
erel on the streamers? ” 

“ How could I possibly tell, sir? Do you suppose 
that my father knows to a fish how many mackerel 
are on his cast of streamers at any time? You 
should have more sense, miller. The most that I 
can speak for is the five that I angled for.” 

“ The impudence of the girl ! She allows that 
she angled for five ! ” 

“ Miller, you would not have me treat them like 
trout and whip for them with a rod and a single 
hook. Oh, no, sir, that would not be worth the 
while. You see, miller, there are so many of them 
swimming about — and — and — well, life is brief.” 

“ ’Tis my belief, Nelly, that there’s a hook on 
every hair of your head and a foolish lad wriggling 
on it.” 

“ You compliment my fishing too highly, sir. If 
I thought that ” 

“ Well, what would happen if you thought that, 
madam? ” 

“ Oh, well, I believe that I would e’en weave my 
hair into a reasonable fishing-net to save time and 
a diffusion of wriggling. There now, miller, we 
have had said the last word between us of this non- 
sense. I know what I am, and you know what I 


22 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


am — a healthy, wholesome country wench, that two 
or three lads think well of, and as many more think 
ill of — they don’t get distraught about me on the 
one hand, and they don’t have any particular 
enmity of me on the other hand. That’s the way 
with all girls, even such as are black-browed, and 
hard-voiced, which no one has yet accused me of 
being, and I’ve walked seven miles from Porthawn 
within the two hours to give you my father’s mes- 
sage about Rowan’s corner, and when I’ve given it 
to you, I have to trudge back with a six-pound bag 
of your best seconds to keep us from starvation for 
a day or two.” 

“ You’ll not trudge back before the morning if 
I have any say in the matter,” cried the miller’s 
daughter, catching up the other’s cloak and throw- 
ing it over one arm. “ Come hither, Nelly, and 
we’ll have a chat in the parlour, like the well- 
to-do folk that we be; these men can have this 
place to themselves till the time comes to lay out 
supper.” 

“ Supper! what good pixie made you say that 
word? ” cried the other girl. “ If you hadn’t said 
it it would have clean gone from my mind that I 
brought with me a stale fish or two that was left 
over from our dinner on Sunday week. What a 
memory I lack, to be sure ! ” 

She picked up a rush basket which she had placed 
on the floor when she was taking off her cloak, and 
handed it to Susan. 

“ You young rapparee ! ” said the miller. “ Did 
it not cross your foolish pate that a basket of fish 
a week old and more is fully capable of betraying 
its presence without the need for a laboured 
memory? ” 

“ I know that that basket betrayed its presence 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 23 


to me more than once as it hung on my arm after 
the first three mile hither,” said the girl. 

“ As I live ’tis a seven-pound pink salmon, and 
? twas swimming in the sea at noon this day,” said 
Susan when she had opened the basket. 

“ She must ha’ heard that we were supping at 
the mill this eve’n, and that I was of the company,” 
said the blacksmith. “ Mistress Polwhele, my 
respects to you ! ” 

“ Nay, Master Hal, had I known that you were 
to be of the company, the salmon would ha’ been a 
fifteen-pounder at least — that is if I wanted any of 
the others to have a mouthful,” laughed the girl. 

She was out of the room before the blacksmith 
had ceased rattling his chair in his pretence of ris- 
ing to carry out the menace he made with his fist 
when she was speaking. 

The miller and his guests watched in silence the 
door through which she had gone. 

“ A bit of a change from Jake Pullsford, eh, 
friends ! ” remarked Hal. 

“ That’s what we needed sorely,” said the miller. 


CHAPTER III 


Life did not seem to be strenuous in the valley of 
the Lana, seven miles from the fishing village of 
Porthawn, and thirty from Falmouth, when the 
eighteenth century still wanted more than ten years 
of completing its first half. To be sure, the high 
road to Plymouth was not so very far away, and 
coaches with passengers and luggage flew daily 
across the little bridge of the Lana at the rate 
sometimes of as much as nine miles an hour; and 
the consciousness of this made the people of the 
village of Ruthallion think rather well of them- 
selves — so at least the dwellers in the more remote 
parts of the region were accustomed to affirm. The 
generous were ready to allow that the most humble- 
minded of people would think well of themselves 
if they were so favourably situated in regard to the 
great world as to be able to get news from London 
only a few days old, simply by waiting at the turn 
of the Plymouth road until a coach came up. 

But of this privilege the people of that most scat- 
tered of all Cornish villages, Ruthallion, did not 
avail themselves to any marked extent, except upon 
occasions of great national importance ; such as the 
achievement of a victory by King George’s army in 
the Low Countries, or by the King’s ships in the 
West Indies. In the latter case the news usually 
came from the Plymouth side of the high road. 
For the sober discussion of such news in all its 
bearings, it was understood that the Lana Mill, 
situated as it was in the valley within a few hun- 

24 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 25 


dred yards of the village, and having a little cause- 
way off the Porthawn road all to itself, occupied a 
most favourable position. There was no inn with 
a well-lighted bar-parlour within four miles of the 
place, and the miller was hospitable. He was said 
to be the inheritor of an important secret in regard 
to the making of cider, and it was no secret that his 
autumnal brew had a flavour that was unsurpassed 
by any cider produced in Cornwall, or (as some 
people said) in the very apple-core of Devonshire 
itself. 

Miller Pendelly was known to be a warm man 
in more senses than one. He had not only a con- 
siderable amount of property apart from the mill, 
which the unfailing waters of the Lana fed ; he was 
a warm-hearted man, though one of the most dis- 
creet that could be imagined. When it was a 
charity to give, he gave freely, but he showed him- 
self to be well aware of the fact that sometimes 
charity consists in withholding one’s hand. He 
was not a man that could be easily imposed upon ; 
though, like all shrewd people, he allowed three or 
four ne’er-do-wells to borrow from him — once. He 
talked of every such case with great bitterness on 
his tongue, but with a twinkle in his eye that 
assured his confidants that he knew what he was 
about. To rid the neighbourhood of an idle youth 
who was robbing an easy-going father, was surely 
worth the disbursement of five guineas; and the 
expatriation of a hard-drinking husband was not 
dear at six. 

He, himself, was a good husband to a good wife, 
and the father of a girl, who, though well favoured, 
was discreet — a girl who loved her home and all it 
contained better than she did any possible lover. 

The miller’s friends were just equal in number to 


20 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


the inhabitants of the valley and of the villages of 
Porthawn and Ruthallion. Even the mother of the 
worthless youth who had disappeared with the five 
guineas, and the wife of the bibulous husband who 
had not returned after contracting his loan of six, 
became, in the course of time, his friends, and al- 
most forgave him for his exercise of generosity. 
But among his neighbours there were none whom 
he met on such friendly terms as those to whom he 
turned with a side-nod of his head when the girls 
had gone. 

“ They may spare their breath who would tell me 
that the ill-favoured ones are the best daughters,” 
said he. 

“ Pll not be the first to advance that doctrine to 
the father of Susan Pendelly,” said the blacksmith. 

The miller laughed. 

“ Sue was not in my thought,” he cried — “ at 
least not when I spoke, though thinking of her now 
only makes me stronger in my opinion. ’Twas the 
sight of Pother lass. Merry she be and with a 
sharp enough tongue, but was there ever a better 
daughter than Nelly Polwhele, tell me that, Hal?” 

“ A fine salmon fish it be surely,” said the black- 
smith. “ Seven pounds, I’ll wager, if ’tis an 
ounce.” 

“ Out upon thee for a curmudgeon,” shouted the 
miller, giving the blacksmith a push of a vehemence 
so friendly that he with difficulty retained his place 
on the settee. 

“ ’Tis a mortal pity that so spirited a mare foal 
will be tamed sooner or later — that’s the way with 
all female flesh whether well-favoured or black-a- 
vised,” remarked the farmer. 

Richard Pritchard, who was the only single man 
present, shook his head with as great a show of 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 27 

gravity as if he had spent his life taming spirited 
things. 

His arrogance aroused his host. 

“ And what are you that gives yourself airs, my 
man? ” he cried. “ What call has a worm of a 
bachelor to let his tongue wag on a matter that 
might well make owdacious fathers o’ families keep 
dead silence? Richard Pritchard, my good man, 
this talk is not for such as thee. Thou beest a mid- 
dling silent man by nature, Dick, and for that thou 
shouldst be thankful when wild words be flying 
abroad on household matters.” 

“ I allow that I went too far, neighbour, though 
I call all to witness that I did not open my mouth 
to speak,” said the water-finder, with great 
humility. 

“ You are aye over daring, though never all- 
through immoral, Dick,” said the blacksmith 
gravely. 

“ I allow that I earned reproof, friend,” said 
Richard. “We all be human, and many have 
frail thought of high language, and a proud heart 
at the hope of wisdom and ancient learning. But I 
take reproof with no ill-feeling.” 

The miller roared at the success of his jest. 

“ Richard Pritchard, if I didn’t know you for a 
brave Welshman, I would take you for a Dorset 
dairyman that’s so used to the touch o’ butter they 
say it wouldn’t melt in their mouths,” he cried 
when he found breath. 

At this point Mistress Pendelly bustled into the 
room, which was not the kitchen, but only a sort 
of business-room of the mill, with the message that 
supper would not be ready so soon as she could 
wish; the salmon steaks took their own time to 
cook, she affirmed, and expressed the hope that her 


28 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


friends would be able to hold out for another half 
hour. 

“ Make no excuses, mother,” said her husband. 
“ Why, good wife, the very sound of the frizzling 
will keep us alive in hope, and the smell that 
creeps through the crevices of the kitchen door is 
nigh as satisfying as a full meal in itself.” 

“ Speak for yourself if you are so minded, 
miller,” cried Hal Holmes. “ Sup off the sound of 
a frizzle mixed with the sniff of a well-greased pan, 
if you so please, but give me a flake or two o’ 
salmon flesh, good mother, the pink o’ the body just 
showing through the silver o’ the scales. Oh, a 
lady born is your sea salmon with her pink com- 
plexion shining among the folds o’ her silver 
lace!” 

“ Ay, sir, better than that your praise should be, 
for the fish’s beauty is more than skin deep,” said 
the housewife, as she stood with the kitchen door 
half open. 

The miller winked at his friends when she had 
disappeared. 

“ Canst better that, Hal ? ” he enquired. 

“ Vanity to try,” replied the blacksmith. “ A 
man’s good enough maybe for the catching o’ a 
salmon, but it needs a woman’s deft fingers to cook 
it. You see through my proverb, miller? ” 

“ It needs no spying glass, Hal,” said the miller. 
“ The interpretation thereof is in purpose that it 
needs a woman’s nimble wit to put a finishing touch 
to a simple man’s discourse, howsoever well meant 
it may be. Eh, farmer? ” 

“ ’Tis different wi’ pilchards, as is only natural, 
seeing what sort of eating they be,” said the 
farmer shrewdly ; he found that he had been wittier 
than he had any notion of being, and he added his 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 29 


loudest chuckles (when he had recovered from his 
surprise) to the roaring of the miller’s laughter. 

It was Nelly Polwhele who demanded to be let 
into the secret of the merriment so soon as she had 
returned to the room with Susan, and when the 
miller told her, with an illuminating wink and a 
shrewd nod, she laughed in so musical a note with 
her hands uplifted that the farmer pursed out his 
lips in pride at his own wit. He was not without a 
hope that he might find out, in the course of the 
evening, wherein the point of it lay. 

Meantime Nelly was looking anxiously around 
the room. 

“ What’s gone wrong wi’ the girl?” said the 
miller. “ Oh, I see how things be: ’tis so long since 
she was here the place seems strange to her. Is ’t 
not so, Nelly? ” 

“ Partly, sir,” replied the girl. “ But mainly I 
was looking to see where Mr. Pullsford was hiding. 
You can’t be supping in good style and he absent.” 

“ Give no heed to Mr. Pullsford, whether he be 
here or not; spend your time in telling us where you 
yourself have been hiding for the past month,” cried 
the miller. 

“ She has not been hiding, she has been doing just 
the opposite — displaying herself to the fashionable 
world,” said Susan. 

“ Hey, what’s all this? ” said the miller. “ You 
don’t mean to tell us that you’ve been as far as 
Plymouth? ” 

“ Plymouth, indeed ! Prithee, where’s the rank 
and fashion at Plymouth, sir? ” cried Nelly. 
“ Nay, sir, ’tis to the Bath I have been, as befits 
one in my station in life.” 

“ The Bath? — never,” exclaimed the miller, 
while the girl, lifting up her dress with a dainty 


30 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


finger and thumb to the extent of an inch or two, 
went mincing past him down the room, followed by 
the eyes of the blacksmith and the others of the 
party. “ ’Tis in jest you speak, you young baggage 
— how would such as you ever get as far as the 
Bath?” 

“ It sounds like a fancy freak, doth it not truly ; 
and yet ’tis the sober truth,” said Nelly. “ At the 
Bath I was, and there I kept for a full month, in 
the very centre core of all the grandest that the 
world has in store. I didn’t find myself a bit out 
of place, I protest.” 

“ Hear the girl ! ” exclaimed the miller. “ She 
talks with the cold assurance of a lady of quality — 
not that I ever did meet with one to know; but — 
and the fun of it is that she wouldn’t be out of 
place in the most extravagant company. Come, 
then, tell us how it came about. Who was it kid- 
napped thee? ” 

And then the girl told how it was that Squire 
Trelawny’s young ladies at Court Royal, having 
lost their maid, owing to her marrying in haste, 
asked her to take the young woman’s place for a 
month or two until they should get suited. As she 
had always been a favourite with them, she had 
consented, and they had forthwith set out for the 
Bath with the Squire’s retinue of chariots and 
horsemen, and there they had sojourned for a 
month. 

“ ’Tis, indeed, like a story o’ pixies and their 
magic and the like,” said the miller. “ I knew that 
the young ladies and you was ever on the best o’ 
terms, but who could tell that it would come to such 
as this? And I’ll wager my life that within a day 
and a night you could tire their hair and dust it 
wi’ powder with the best of their ladyships’ ladies. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 31 


And, prithee, what saw you at the Bath besides 
the flunkies o’ the quality? ” 

“ Oh, sir, ask me not to relate to you all that I 
saw and noted,” said the girl. Every day of 
my life I said, ‘ What a place the world is to be 
sure ! ’ ” 

“ And so it be,” said the farmer approvingly. 

“ Oh, the rank and fashion, farmer, such as 
would astonish even you, and you are a travelled 
man,” said she. 

“ Ay, I have been as wide afield as Falmouth on 
the west and Weymouth on the east,” said the 
farmer. “ Ay, I know the world.” 

“ Your travels have ever been the talk of the six 
parishes, sir,” said the girl. “ But among all the 
strange people that have come under your eyes, I’ll 
warrant you there was none stranger than you 
might find at the Bath. Have you ever in your 
travels crossed ladies sitting upright in stumpy 
sentry boxes with a stout fellow bearing it along 
the streets, winging ’twixt the pair o’ poles? ” 

“ Naught so curious truly; but I’ve seen honest 
and honourable men that had heard of such like,” 
said the farmer. 

“ And to think that I saw them with these eyes, 
and link boys, when there was no moon, and con- 
certs of music in the Cave of Harmony, night by 
night, and two gentlemen fighting in a field — this 
was by chance, and my lady passing in a chariot 
sent forth a shriek, so that one pistol exploded be- 
fore its time, and the bullet graded a peaceful gen- 
tleman, who they said was a doctor of physic com- 
ing quick across the meadow, scenting a fee ! ” 

“ Pity is ’twasn’t a lawyer. I hoard the thought 
that in case o’ a fight ’twixt friends, the lawyers 
hurry up as well as the doctors in hope of a job,” 


32 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


said the miller. “ Well, you’ve seen the world a 
deal for one so young, Nelly,” he added. 

“ And the concerts of singing and the assemblies 
and the beautiful polite dance which they call the 
minuet were as nought when placed alongside the 
plays in the playhouse,” cried Nelly. 

The miller became grave. 

“ There be some who see a wicked evil in going 
to the playhouse,” he remarked, with a more casual 
air than was easy to him. 

“ That I have heard,” said the girl. 

“ They say that a part o’ the playhouse is called 
the pit,” suggested the farmer. “ Ay, I saw the 
name over the door at Plymouth, as it maybe did 
you, miller.” 

“ And some jumped at the notion that that pit 
led to another of a bottomless sort? ” said the girl. 
“ Well, I don’t say that ’twas the remembrance of 
that only that drew me to the playhouse. I did get 
something of a shock, I allow, when my young 
ladies bade me attend them to the playhouse one 
night, but while I sought a fair excuse for ’biding 
at our lodging on the Mall, I found myself invent- 
ing excuses for obeying my orders, and I must say 
that I found it a good deal easier doing this than 
t’other.” 

“ Ay, ay, I doubt not that — oh, no, we doubt it 
not,” cried the miller, shaking his head. 

Richard Pritchard shook his head also. 

“ I found myself saying, ‘ How can the playhouse 
be a place of evil when my good young ladies, who 
are all that is virtuous, find it a pleasure to go? 9 ” 

The miller shook his head more doubtfully than 
before. 

“ I think that you left the service of your young 
ladies in good time,” muttered the miller. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 33 


“Do not dare to say a word against them — 
against even Mistress Alice, who, I allow, hath a 
tantrum now and again, when the seamstress fails 
her in time or mode,” said the girl. “ Of course 
when I reflected that I was but a servant, so to 
speak, and that my duty was to obey my mistresses, 
I would hesitate no longer. Duty is a virtue, sir, 
so I submitted without a complaint.” 

“ Ay, you would do that,” murmured the black- 
smith. 

“ I said to myself ” 

“ Oh,” groaned the miller.^ 

Nelly ignored the groan. She went on demurely 
from where she was interrupted. 

“ I said to myself, * Should there be evil in it 
none can hold me blameworthy, since I was only 
obeying the order of them that were set over me.’ 
I went and I was glad that I went, for I saw no evil 
in word or act.” 

“ I’m grieved to hear it, Nelly,” said the 
miller. 

“ What, you are grieved to hear that I saw noth- 
ing of evil? Oh, sir! ” 

“ I mean that I don’t like to think of a girl like 
thee in such a place, Nelly. But let’s make the 
best of a bad matter and recount to us what you 
saw. It may be that by good fortune we may be 
able to find out the evil of it, so that you may shun 
it in future.” 

“ Alack, I fear the chance will not come to me in 
the future,” said Nelly mournfully. 

“ I trust not. Who was the actor that night, do 
you mind? ” asked the miller. 

“ Her name was Mistress Woffington, and now I 
mind that one of my ladies said that Mr. Long had 
told her that Mistress Woffington had been to din- 


34 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


ner with the learned provost of Dublin College in 
Ireland — a parson and a scholar.” 

“ Oh, an Irishman ! ” was the comment of the 
miller. 

“ Let the girl be, miller,” said Hal Holmes. 
“ She’s making a brave fight in the way of excus- 
ing herself. Go thy gait, Nell; give us a taste of 
the quality of this Mistress Woffington.” 

“ Oh, Hal, she is a beauty — I never thought that 
the world held such. The finest ladies of quality at 
the Bath, though they all copy her in her mode, are 
not fit to hold a candle to her. And her clothing 
and her modesty withal. They say she does the 
modest parts best of all.” 

“ Ay, I’ve heard that the likes of her are best in 
parts that have the least in common with them- 
selves,” murmured the miller. 

“ Oh, to see her when she vowed that she would 
be true to her lover albeit that her ancient father, 
stamping about with a cudgel and a mighty wig, 
had promised her to a foolish fellow in yellow silk 
and an eyeglass with a long handle, and a foppish 
way of snuff -taking and a cambric handkerchief! 
La ! how the lady made a fool of him under his very 
nose. This is Mistress Woffington : < I protest, Sir, 
that I am but a simple girl, country bred, that is 
ready to sink into the earth at the approach of so 
dangerous a gentleman as your lordship.’ And 
she make a little face at her true lover, who is get- 
ting very impatient, in blue and silver, at the other 
side of the room. 4 Stap my vitals, madam,’ lisps 
the jessamy, dangling his cane in this fashion — you 

should see them do it on the Mall ” She picked 

up a light broom that lay at the side of the hearth 
and made a very pretty swagger across the room 
with her body bent and her elbow raised in imita- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 35 

tion of the exquisite of the period, quite unknown 
to Cornwall. “ ‘ Egad, my dear, for a country 
wench you are not without favour. To be sure, you 
lack the mode of the liaut ton , but that will come to 
you in time if you only watch me — that is, to a cer- 
tain extent. My lady, the Duchess says, “ Charles 
is inimitable.” Ah, her Grace is a sad flatterer, ’fore 
Gad, but she sometimes speaks the truth.’ ‘ What, 
Sir,’ says the lady, ‘do you think that in time I 
should catch some of your grand air? I beseech 
you, Sir, have pity on a poor simple maiden ; do not 
raise false hopes in her breast.’ ‘ Nay, pretty 
charmer, I do not dare to affirm that you will ever 
quite catch the full style — the air of breeding, so 
to speak ; but you may still catch ’ ‘ the small- 

pox, and faith, I think I would prefer it to him,’ 
says Mrs. Woffington in a whisper, that all in the 
playhouse can hear. ‘ Eh, what’s that? ’ lisps Mr. 
Floppington. ‘Oh, sir, I was just saying that I 
fear I am sickening for the smallpox, which runs 
in our family as does the gout, only a deal faster.’ 
‘ Eh, what, what ! keep away from me, girl, keep 
away, I tell you.’ He retreats with uplifted hands ; 
she follows him, with her own clasped, imploring 
him not to reject her. He waves his cane in front 
of her as if she was a bull ready to toss him. They 
both speak together, they run round the table, he 
springs upon the table, she tilts it over — down he 
goes crying, ‘ Murder — murder — stop her — hold 
her back ! ’ He is on his feet again, his fine coat 
torn in half at the back. She catches at it and one 
whole side rips off in her hand. He makes for the 
window — finds it too high to jump from — rushes 
to the door and down goes the lady’s father, who is 
in the act of entering, with a bump, and down goes 
the fop with the half coat in the other direction. 


36 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The lady sits drumming with her heels on the floor 
between them in a shrieking faint — thus ! ” 

She flung herself into a chair and her shrieks 
sounded shrill above the laughter of the others. 

Suddenly the laughter came to an abrupt end, as 
though it were cut in twain with a sharp knife. 
The girl continued for a few seconds shrieking and 
rapping her heels on the floor, her head thrown 
back; then she clearly became aware of the fact 
that something unusual had occurred. She looked 
up in surprise at the men on the settee, followed the 
direction of their eyes, and saw standing at the 
porch door a man of medium stature, wearing a 
long riding cloak and carrying a book in one hand. 
The doorway framed him. The dimness of the 
shadowy eventide made a background for his head, 
the candle which Susan had lighted in the room 
shone upon his face, revealing the thin, refined fea- 
tures of a man who was no longer young. His 
face was sweetness made visible — eyes that looked 
in brotherly trustfulness into the eyes of others, and 
that, consequently, drew trust from others — illim- 
itable trust. 

The girl stared at the stranger who had appeared 
in the doorway with such suddenness ; and she saw 
what manner of man he was. There was an expres- 
sion of mild surprise on his face while he looked at 
her, the central figure in the room; but she saw 
that there was a gentle smile about his eyes. 

“ I hope that I am not an intruder upon your 
gaiety,” said the stranger. “ I knocked twice at the 
door, and then, hearing the shrieks of distress, I 
ventured to enter. I hoped to be of some assist- 
ance — shrieks mixed with laughter — well, I have 
stopped both.” 

The miller was on his feet in a moment. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 37 


“ Foolery, sir, girl’s foolery all!” lie said, going 
towards the stranger. “ Pray, enter, if you can be 
persuaded that you are not entering a Bedlam 
mad-house.” 

“ Nay, sir,” said the newcomer. “ ’Twould be 
foolish to condemn simply because I do not under- 
stand. I am a stranger to this county of England ; 
I have had no chance of becoming familiar with 
your pastimes. Dear child, forgive me if I broke 
in upon your merriment,” he added, turning to 
Nelly. “ Good sir,” — he was now facing the miller 
— “ I have ridden close upon thirty miles to-day — 
the last four in the want of a shoe ; my horse must 
have cast it in the quagmire between the low hills. 
Yours was the first light that I saw — I was in hopes 
that it came from a blacksmith’s forge.” 

The miller laughed. 

“ ’Tis better than that, good sir,” said he. “ The 
truth is that the smith of these parts is a fellow not 
to be trusted by travellers: his forge is black to- 
night, unless his apprentices are better men than 
he. He is a huge eater of salmon and divers dain- 
ties, and he will drink as much as a mugful of 
cider before the night is past.” 

“ But he is a fellow that is ready to sacrifice a 
cut of salmon and a gallon of cider to earn a six- 
pence for a shoe, sir,” said Hal Holmes, rising from 
the settee and giving himself a shake. “ In short, 
sir, I be Holmes, the smith, whose lewd character 
has been notified to your honour, and if you trust 
me with your nag, I’ll promise you to fit a shoe on 
him within the half-hour.” 

The stranger looked from the smith to the miller, 
and back again to the smith, and his smile broad- 
ened. 

“ Good neighbours both, I can see,” he said. “ I 


38 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

thank you, smith. How far is it to Porthawn, 
pray, and what may this placed be called? ” 

Before he could be answered the door opened and 
Jake Pullsford entered the room. The sound of 
his entrance caused the stranger to turn his head. 
Jake gave an exclamation of surprise. 

“ Mr. Wesley ! ” he said in a whisper that had 
something of awe in its tone. “ Mr. Wesley ! How 
is this possible? I have spent the afternoon talk- 
ing of you, sir.” 

At the sound of the name the miller glanced 
meaningly at the smith. They were plainly sur- 
prised. 

“ Well, my brother,” said Mr. Wesley, “ I ask 
nothing better than to give you the chance of talk- 
ing to me for the next hour. I remember you well. 
You are Jake Pullsford, who came to see me a 
month ago at Bristol. You have been much in my 
thoughts — in my prayers.” 


CHAPTER IV 


Jake was so excited at finding himself by a curi- 
ous accident once more face to face with the man 
who, as he had happily confessed to his friends, had 
produced so great an impression upon him as to 
change the whole course of his life, that he began 
to talk to him in his usual rapid way, as though 
Mr. Wesley and himself were the only persons in 
the room. 

The miller remained on his feet. The black- 
smith was also on his feet. He had assumed a 
professional air. After all, he was likely to be the 
most important person present. The girl in the 
chair remained with her hands folded on her lap. 
She had the aspect of a schoolgirl who has broken 
out of bounds and awaits an interview with the 
schoolmistress. She had heard during her visit to 
Bath of this Mr. Wesley and his views — at least 
such views as were attributed to him by the fashion- 
able folk who assembled to have their gossip and 
intrigue flavoured by the sulphur of the waters. He 
was not so easy-going as the clergymen at Bath. 
She could not doubt that he would esteem it his 
duty to lecture her on her levity. It was known 
that he abhorred playgoing. He was naturally 
abhorred by the players. They had the best of 
reasons : when he was preaching in any town that 
had a theatre, the players remained with empty 
pockets. 

The appearance of Mrs. Pendelly announcing 
that supper was ready was a great relief to her. 

39 


40 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


She jumped up with alacrity. Jake Pullsford came 
back to earth. He was breathing hard. The 
visitor had signified his intention of resuming his 
journey, if his horse could be shod. Jake was en- 
treating him to pass the night at his house, only a 
mile up the valley. 

The miller was beginning to feel awkward. He 
was hospitably inclined, but he was not presumptu- 
ous. The blacksmith was fast losing his profes- 
sional bearing; a sniff of the salmon steaks had 
come through the open door. 

It was the visitor whose tact made the situation 
easy for everyone. 

“ Sir,” he said to the miller, “ I have arrived here 
so opportunely for myself that I will not even go 
through the pretence of offering to go to the way- 
side inn, which our good friend Jake Pullsford tells 
me is some miles away. I know that I can throw 
myself on your hospitality and that you would feel 
affronted if I hurried on. I have no mind to do so 
— to be more exact, I should say no stomach.” 

“ Sir, if your reverence will honour my house I 
can promise you a wholesome victual,” said the 
miller. “ Even if you was not a friend o’ my friend 
Jake here, who might, I think, have named 
my name in your ear, you would still be wel- 
come.” 

“ I know it, sir,” said Wesley, offering the miller 
his hand. “ I thank you on behalf of myself and 
my good partner whose bridle I hung over your 
ring-post. A feed of oats will put new spirit in him 
in spite of the loss of his shoe.” 

“ The horse shall be seen to, Mr. Wesley. Susan, 
the stable bell,” said the miller, and his daughter 
set a bell jangling on the gable wall. 

“ Again my thanks, good friend,” said Wesley. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 41 


“ May I beg your leave to be presented to my fellow- 
guests at your table, sir? ” 

He shook hands with the farmer, the water-finder 
and the smith, saying a word to each. Then he 
turned to where the two young women had been. 

They had fled through the open door, Nelly hav- 
ing been the one to judge of the exact moment for 
flight. 

They appeared at the supper table, however, but 
not taking their seats until they had waited upon 
all the others of the party. That was the patriar- 
chal custom of the time. Nelly Polwhele only 
wished that the severe discipline of a side table for 
the serving girls had been in force at the Mill. Re- 
mote from the long oak table on which generations 
of her family had dined, she might have had a 
pleasant chat with her friend Susan, and then steal 
off, evading the lecture which she felt was impend- 
ing from the strict Mr. Wesley. As it was, the 
most she could do for herself was to choose an un- 
obtrusive place at the further end from the clergy- 
man. She hoped that the excellence of the salmon 
which she had carried through the valley of the 
Lana would induce him to refrain from asking any 
questions in regard to the game that was being 
played at the moment of his entrance. 

But Mr. Wesley was vigilant. He espied her be- 
fore he had finished his salmon, and had expressed 
his thanks to her for having burdened herself with 
it. It was his thirst for information of all sorts 
that had caused him to enquire how it was possible 
to have for supper a fish that must have been swim- 
ming in the sea, or at least in a salmon river, which 
the Lana was not, a few hours before. Was not 
Porthawn the nearest fishing village, and it was 
six miles away? Then it was that Mrs. Pendelly 


4$ The love that prevailed 


had told him of Nelly’s journey on foot bearing 
her father’s gift to his friend the miller. 

“ I should like to have a word or two with you, 
my dear,” said Mr. Wesley when he had thanked 
her. “ I wish to learn something of the people of 
Porthawn. I am on my way thither to preach, and 
I like to learn as much as is possible of the people 
who, I hope, will hear what I have to say to them.” 

Nelly blushed and tried to say that she was 
afraid she could tell him nothing that he could not 
learn from any other source — that was what was on 
her mind — but somehow her voice failed her. She 
murmured something; became incoherent, and then 
ate her salmon at a furious rate. 

The miller, although he had felt bound to offer 
hospitality to the stranger who had appeared at his 
door, knew that his other guests — with the excep- 
tion, it might be, of Jake Pullsford — would feel, as 
he himself did, that the presence of this austere 
clergyman would interfere with their good fellow- 
ship at supper and afterwards. He and his asso- 
ciates knew one another with an intimacy that had 
been maturing for thirty years, and the sudden 
coming of a stranger among them could not but 
cause a certain reserve in the natural freedom of 
their intercourse. 

The miller had a constant fear that this Mr. Wes- 
ley would in the course of the evening say some- 
thing bitter about the parsons who hunted and bred 
game-cocks and fought them, laying money on their 
heads — on parsons who lived away from their par- 
ishes, allowing indifferent curates to conduct the 
services of the church — of parsons who boasted of 
being able to drink the Squires under the table. 
The miller had no confidence in his power of keep- 
ing silent when he felt that the parson with whom 


‘THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 42 

he was on the easiest of terms and for whose game- 
cocks he prepared a special mixture of stiffening 
grain food was being attacked by a stranger, so he 
rather regretted that his duty compelled him to in- 
vite Mr. Wesley, of whom he, in common with thou- 
sands of the people of the West country, had heard 
a great deal, to supper on this particular evening. 

But in the course of the meal he began to think 
that he would have no reason to put any restraint 
upon himself. He soon became aware of the fact 
that this Reverend John Wesley was not altogether 
the austere controversialist which rumour, becom- 
ing more and more exaggerated as it travelled 
West, made him out to be. Before supper was over 
he had come to the conclusion that Parson Rodney 
as a companion could not hold a candle to this 
Mr. Wesley. 

The compliment in respect of the salmon had 
pleased both the miller and his wife, even though 
it had made Nell blush; and then a bantering word 
or two was said to Hal Holmes and his fine taste 
for salmon, and forthwith Mr. Wesley was giving 
an animated account of how he had seen the In- 
dians in Georgia spearing for salmon on one of the 
rivers. This power of bringing a wide scene before 
one’s eyes in a moment by the use of an illumi- 
nating word or two was something quite new to the 
miller and his friends; but it was the special gift 
of his latest guest. With thin uplifted forefinger — 
it had the aspect as well as the power of a wizard’s 
wand — he seemed to draw the whole picture in the 
air before the eyes of all at the table — the roar of 
the rapids whose name with its Indian inflections 
was in itself a romance — the steathily moving red 
men with their tomahawks and arrows and long 
spears — the enormous backwoods — one of them 


44 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


alone half the size of England and Wales — the 
strange notes of the bird — whip-poor-will, the set- 
tlers called it — moonlight over all — moonlight that 
was like a thin white sheet let down from heaven 
to cover the earth; and where this silver wonder 
showed the white billows of foam churned up by 
the swirl of the mad river, there was the gleam of 
torches — from a distance they looked like the fierce 
red eyes of the wild beasts of the backwood; but 
coming close one could see deep down at the foot 
of the rapids the flash of a blood-red scimitar — the 
quick reflection in the passionate surface of the 
water of the red flare that waved among the rocks. 
Then there was a sudden splash and a flash — an- 
other scimitar — this time of silver scattering dia- 
monds through the moonlight — another flash like 
a thin beam of light — the fish was transfixed in 
mid-air by the Indian spear! . . . 

They saw it all. The scene was brought before 
their eyes. They sat breathless around the supper 
table. And yet the man who had this magic of 
voice and eye had never once raised that voice of 
his — had never once made a gesture except by the 
uplifting of his finger. 

“ Fishing — that is fishing ! ” said Hal Holmes. 
“ I should like ” 

The finger was upraised in front of him. 

“ You must not so much as think of it, my friend ! 
It would be called poaching on our rivers here,” 
said Mr. Wesley with a smile. 

“ Then I should like to live in the land where the 
fish of the rivers, the deer of the forests, the birds 
of the air are free, as it was intended they should 
be — free to all men who had skill and craft — I have 
heard of the trappers,” said Hal. “ It seems no 
sort of life for a wholesome man to live — pulling 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 45 


the string of a bellows, hammering iron into shoes 
for plough-horses! — no life whatsoever.” 

Wesley smiled. 

“ Ah, if you but knew aught of the terror of the 
backwoods,” said he. “ If you but knew of it — one 
vast terror — monstrous — incredible. A terror by 
day and by night. I was used to stand on one of 
the hills hard by our little settlement, and look out 
upon the woods whose skirts I could see in the far 
distance, and think of their immensity and their 
mystery. Hundreds of miles you might travel 
through those trackless forests until the hundreds 
grew into thousands — at last you would come upon 
the prairie — hundred and hundreds of miles of sav- 
age country — a mighty ocean rolling on to the foot 
of the Rocky Mountains! Between the backwoods 
and the mountains roll the Misissippi River — the 
Ohio, the Potomac. Would you know what the 
Mississippi is like? Take the Thames and the Sev- 
ern and the Wye and the Tyne and the Humber — 
let them roll their combined volume down the one 
river bed ; the result would be no more than an in- 
significant tributary of the Mother of Waters — the 
meaning of the name Mississippi.” 

There was more breathlessness. When Hal 
Holmes broke the silence everyone was startled — 
everyone stared at him. 

“ Grand ! grand ! ” he said in a whisper. “ And 
your eyes beheld that wonder of waters, sir? ” 

Mr. Wesley held up both his hands. 

“ I — I — behold it? ” he cried. “ Why, there is no 
one in England whose eyes have looked upon that 
great river. Had I set out to find it I should have 
had to travel for a whole year before reaching it — 
a year, even if the forests had opened their arms to 
receive me, and the prairie had offered me a path. 


46 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


I spoke with an Indian who had seen it, and I 
spoke with the widows of two men who had gone 
in search for it. Four years had passed without 
tidings of those men, and then one of the Iroquois 
tribe found a tattered hat that had belonged to one 
of them, on the borders of the backwoods, not a hun- 
dred miles from his starting place. Of the other 
nothing has yet been forthcoming. I tell you, 
friends, that I was used to let my eyes wander 
across the plain until they saw that forest, and they 
never saw it without forcing me to look upon it as 
a vast, monstrous thing — but a living creature — 
one of those fabled dragons that were said to lie in 
wait to devour poor wretches that drew nigh to it. 
Nay, when I looked upon it I recalled the very 
striking lines in John Milton’s fine epic of ‘ Para- 
dise Lost ’ : 

“ 4 With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides 
Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 

Lay floating many a rood, — ’ 

One must needs be a dweller among the adven- 
turers in America in order to understand in its 
fulness how terrible a monster those backwoods 
are thought to be. There it stretched, that awful 
mass — that monstrous mother of that venomous 
brood — the huge snakes that lurk in the under- 
growth, the fierce lynx, the terrible panther, the 
wolf and the wildcat. I have heard, too, of a cer- 
tain dragon and the vampire — a huge bat that 
fans a poor wretch asleep by the gentle winnowing 
of its leather wings only to drain his life’s blood. 
These are but a few of the brood of the backwoods. 
Who can name them all? The poisonous plants 
that shoot out seeds with the noise of the discharge 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 47 


of a musket, the swamps made up of the decay of a 
thousand years — breathing fevers and agues — the 
spectre of starvation lurks there unless you have 
weapons and the skill to use them — fire — they told 
me of the prairie fires — a blast of flame five miles 
broad — sometimes twenty miles broad — rushing 
along driving before it beasts and birds until they 
drop in sheer exhaustion and become cinders in a 
minute — these are some of the terrors that dwell in 
the backwoods, but worst of all — most fierce — inex- 
orable, is the Red Indian. Tongue of man cannot 
tell the story of their treachery — their torturings. 
Our settlers do not fear to face the beasts of the 
backwoods — the rattlesnakes — the pestilence of the 
swamps — the most cruel of these is more merciful 
than the Indian.” 

They listened as children listen to a fairy tale, 
and they knew that they were hearing the truth. 
There was not one of them that had not heard some- 
thing of the story of the founding of the settlement 
along the coast of the new Continent, from the Bay 
Colonies and Plymouth Rock in the North to Caro- 
lina in the South. The spirit of adventure which 
had given Drake and Raleigh their crews from the 
men of the West country gave no signs of dying 
out among their descendants. They listened and 
were held in thrall while this man, who had come 
among them with something of the reputation of 
a pioneer — a man boldly striking out a new track 
for himself, told them of the perils faced by their 
countrymen on the other side of that sea which 
almost rolled to their very doors. He carried them 
away with him. They breathed with him the per- 
fume of the backwoods and became imbued with 
the spirit of mystery pervading them. He carried 
them away simply because he himself was carried 


48 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


away. He felt all that he spoke about; this w T as 
the secret of his power. He could not have made 
them feel strongly unless by feeling strongly him- 
self. 

But his aim was not limited to his desire to 
arouse their interest in the romance of the back- 
woods. He spoke of the troubles of the young set- 
tlement to which he had gone out, of the bravery of 
the settlers, men and women — of the steadfast hope 
which animated them in facing their anxieties — 
their dangers. What was the power that sustained 
them? In one word, it was faith. 

Without the least suggestion of preaching, he 
talked to them of Faith. He talked as if it was not 
merely a sentiment — a cold doctrine to be discussed 
by the aid of logic — nay, but as a real Power — a 
Power that could move mountains. Such as had 
it had the greatest gift that Heaven offered to man- 
kind. It was a gift that was offered freely — all 
could have it, if they so willed; and this being so, 
how great would be the condemnation of those who 
refused to accept it! 

And the people who had eagerly drunk in all that 
he had to say of the mystery of the backwoods 
were even more interested when he talked of this 
other mystery. There had been no dividing line in 
his subject; the Faith of which he was now speak- 
ing with all the eloquence of simple language that 
fell like soft music on their ears, was a natural 
part — the most actual part of his story of the great 
half-known West. 

They listened to him while he discoursed for that 
marvellous half-hour, and the prayer that followed 
seemed also a part — the suitable closing part of 
that story of trial and trouble and danger rendered 
impotent by Faith. Surely, when such a gift could 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 49 


be had for the asking, they should ask for it. He 
prayed that the hearts of all who were kneeling 
might be opened to receive that saving grace of 
Faith. 

“ Hal, my friend,” said the miller, when they 
stood together at the entrance to the lane, having 
seen Mr. Wesley drive off with Jake. “ Hal, for 
the first time these sixteen years I have seen thee 
rise from thy supper without searching about for 
thy pipe ! ” 

“ My pipe? List, old friend, while I tell thee 
that to pass another such evening I would break 
my pipe into a hundred pieces and never draw a 
whiff of ’bacca between my teeth,” said Hal. 
“ Moreover, a word in thy ear : I would not have it 
made public ; I’ll smoke no more ’bacca that comes 
to me by a back way. I believe that why I didn’t 
smoke this evening was by reason of the feeling 
that was in me that ’twould be a solemn sin for me 
to let him have even a sniff of ’bacca that had been 
run.” 

The miller laughed. 

“ Why, Hal, he did not preach to us to give the 
Preventive men their due,” he said. 

“ No, no. If he had I might ha’ been the less 
disposed to do the right thing. But now — well, no 
more smuggled ’bacca for me.” 

“ Good — good — but wherefore this honest re- 
solve, Hal Holmes? ” 

“ I know not. Only I seem somehow to look at 
some things in a new light.” 

“ And that light will not let your tinder be fired 
over a pipe o’ ’bacca that has paid no duty? That’s 
right enough, but what I need to learn from you is 
the reason of all this.” 

“ Ah, there you have me, friend. I can give you 


50 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


no reason for it; only the notion came over me 
quite sudden like, that for ten year I had been 
doing what I should ha’ turned from, and I made 
the resolve now to turn now before it was too late. 
That’s all, and so, good-night to you, Mat, and 
God bless you. I be to get that shoe on before he 
starts from Jake’s house i’ the morn, and he said 
he would start betimes.” 

The miller laughed again, but very gently, and 
held out his hand to the other without a word. It 
was not until the blacksmith had disappeared 
down the lane that his friend said in a low voice : 

“ It beats me clean. There must be a sort of 
magic in the man’s tongue that it works those won- 
ders. All the time that he was telling us his story 
o’ the woods I was making up my mind to be a 
better man — to have more charity at heart for my 
fellows — to be easier on such as cannot pay all that 
they have promised to pay. And now here’s Hal 
that confesses to the same, albeit he has never gone 
further out of the straight track than to puff a 
pipe that has paid nothing to King George’s purse. 
And the man gave no preacher’s admonition to us, 
but only talked o’ the forest and such-like wild 
things. . . . Now, how did he manage to bring 

Faith into such a simple discourse? . . . Oh, 

’tis his tongue that has the magic in it! Magic, I 
say; for how did it come that when he spoke I 
found myself gazing like a child at a picture — a 
solid, bright picture o’ woods and things? . . . Oh, 
’tis true magic, this — true I ” 


CHAPTER V 


“ Oh, that a man could speak to men in the lan- 
guage of the Spring! ” cried Mr. Wesley, when his 
horse stopped unbidden and unchidden and looked 
over the curved green roof of the hedge across the 
broad green pasturage beyond. “ Oh, that my lips 
could speak that language which every ear can 
understand and every heart feel! What shall it 
profit a man to understand if he does not feel — 
feel — feel? The man who understands is the one 
who holds in his hand the doctor’s prescription. 
The man who feels is the one who grasps the heal- 
ing herbs; and ’tis the Spring that yields these for 
all to gather who will.” 

And then, automatically he took his feet out of 
the stirrups for greater ease, and his eyes gazed 
across the meadow-land which sloped gently up- 
ward to the woods where the sunbeams were snared 
among the endless network of the boughs, for the 
season was not advanced far enough to make the 
foliage dense; the leaves were still thin and trans- 
parent — shavings of translucent emerald — a shade 
without being shadowy. 

Everything that he saw was a symbol to him. 
He looked straight into the face of Nature herself 
and saw in each of its features something of the 
Great Message to man with which his own heart 
was filled to overflowing. He was a poet whose 
imagination saw beneath the surface of everything. 
He was a physician who could put his finger upon 
the pulse of Nature and feel from its faintest flut- 

51 


52 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


ter the mighty heart which throbbed through the 
whole creation. 

What man was there that failed to understand 
the message of Nature as he understood it? He 
could not believe that any should be so dense as to 
misinterpret it. It was not a book written in a 
strange tongue; it was a book made up of an infi- 
nite number of pictures, full of colour that any 
child could appreciate, even though it had never 
learned to read. There was the meadow beyond 
the hedgerow. It was full of herbs, bitter as well 
as sweet. Could anyone doubt that these were the 
symbols of the Truth ; herbs for the healing of the 
nations, and if some of them were bitter to the 
taste, were their curative properties the less on this 
account? Nay, everyone knew that the bitterest 
herbs were oftentimes the most healing. What a 
symbol of the Truth ! It was not the dulcet truths 
that were purifying to the soul of man, but the 
harsh and unpalatable. 

“ God do so to me and more also if ever I should 
become an unfaithful physician and offer to the 
poor souls of men only those Truths that taste 
sweet in their mouths and that smell grateful to 
their nostrils ! ” he cried. 

And he did not forget himself in the tumult of 
his thought upon his message. He was not the 
physician who looked on himself as standing in no 
need of healing. 

“ I have tasted of the bitter medicine myself and 
know what is its power. Oh, may I be given grace 
to welcome it again should my soul stand in need 
of it! ” 

A lark rose from the grass of the sloping meadow 
and began its ecstatic song as it climbed its aerie 
ladder upward to the pure blue. He listened to the 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 53 


quivering notes — a bubbling spring of melody bab- 
bling and wimpling and gurgling and flitting and 
fluttering as it fell through the sweet morning air. 

“ Oh, marvel of liquid melody ! ” cried the man, 
letting his eyes soar with the soaring bird. “ What 
is the message that is thine ! What is that message 
which fills thy heart with joy and sends thee soar- 
ing out of the sight of man, enraptured to the sky? 
Is it a message from the sons of men that thou bear- 
est to the heavens? Is it a message from Heaven 
that thou sendest down to earth?” 

A butterfly fluttered up from beyond the hedge, 
carrying with it the delicate scent of unseen prim- 
roses. It hovered over the moss of the bank for a 
moment and then allowed itself to be blown like a 
brown leaf in the breeze in a fantastic course to- 
ward the group of harebells that made a faint blue 
mist over a yard of meadow. 

He watched its flight. The butterfly had once 
been taken as an emblem of the immortality of the 
soul, he remembered. Was it right that it should 
be thought such a symbol, he wondered. In latter 
years it was looked on as an example of all that is 
fickle and frivolous. Was it possible that the an- 
cients saw more deeply into the heart of things — 
more deeply into the spirit of these forms of 
Nature? 

“ Who can say what wise purpose of the Creator 
that gaudy insect may fulfil in the course of its 
brief existence? ” said he. “ We know that nothing 
had been made in vain. It may be that it flutters 
from flower to flower under no impulse of its own, 
but guided by the Master of Nature, whose great 
design would not be complete without its exist- 
ence. That which we in our ignorance regard as 
an emblem of all that is vain and light may, in 


54 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


truth, be working out one of the gravest purposes 
of the All Wise.” 

He remained under the influence of this train of 
thought for some time. Then his horse gave a little 
start that brought back his rider from the realm 
into which he had been borne by his imagination. 
He caught up the rein, slipped his feet into his stir- 
rups, and perceived that it was the fluttering dress 
of a girl, who had apparently sprung from the 
primrose hollow beyond the hedge, that had star- 
tled the animal. It seemed that the girl herself 
was also startled; she stood a dozen yards away, 
with her lips parted, and gave signs of flight a mo- 
ment before he recognised her as one of the girls 
who had been at the Mill the night before — the girl 
who had been the central figure in the game which 
his entrance had interrupted. 

“ Another butterfly — another butterfly ! ” he said 
aloud, raising his hand to salute Nelly Polwhele, 
who dropped him a curtsey with a faint reply to his 
“ Good-morning.” 

He pushed his horse closer to her, saying: 

“ A fair morning to you, my child ! You are not 
a slug-a-bed. Have you come for the gathering of 
mushrooms or primroses? Not the latter; the bor- 
ders of the Mill stream must be strewn with them 
to-day.” 

“ I am on my way to my home, sir,” she replied. 
“ I set out on my return to the village an hour ago. 
I should be back in less than another — ’tis scarce 
four mile onward.” 

“ I remember that you told me you had come 
from Porthawn — my destination also. I wished for 
a chat with you, but somehow we drifted a long 
way from Porthawn — we drifted across the Atlan- 
tic and got lost in the backwoods of America.” 


The love that prevailed 55 


“ Ah, no, sir, not lost,” said the girl. 

“ I was a poor guide,” said he. “ I have only had 
a glimpse of the backwoods, and so could only lead 
you all a rood or two beyond their fringes of maple. 
The true guide is one that hath been on every for- 
est track and can tell by the tinges on the tree 
trunk in what direction his feet tend. What a pity 
? tis, my dear, that we cannot be so guided through 
this great tangled forest of life that we are travers- 
ing now on to the place of light that is far beyond — 
a place where there is no darkness — a shelter but 
no shadow! There, you see, I begin to preach to 
the first person whom I overtake. That is the way 
of the man who feels laid upon him the command 
to preach.” 

“ It does not sound like preaching, sir,” said the 
girl. “ I would not tire listening to words like 
that.” 

‘‘That is how you know preaching from — well, 
from what is not preaching : you tire of the one, not 
of the other? ” said he, smiling down at her. 

She hung her head. Somehow in the presence of 
this man all her readiness of speech — sharpness of 
reply — seemed to vanish. 

I do not say that you have not made a very 
honest and a very excellent attempt to convey to 
me what is the impression of many people,” he 
resumed. “ But there is a form of preaching of 
which you can never grow weary. I have been lis- 
tening to it since our good friend Hal Holmes 
helped me to mount the horse that he had just 
shod.” 

“ Preaching, sir? ” she said. “ There are not 
many preachers hereabouts. Parson Rodney gives 
us a good ten minutes on Sunday, but he does not 
trouble us on week-days.” 


56 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Doth his preaching trouble you on Sunday, 
child? If so, I think more highly of your parson 
than I should be disposed to think, seeing that I 
have heard nothing about him save that he is the 
best judge of a game-cock in Cornwall. But the 
sermon that makes a listener feel troubled in spirit 
is wholesome. Ah, never mind that. I tell you 
that I have been listening to sermons all this lovely 
morning — the sermon of that eminent preacher, the 
sun, to the exhortation of the fields, the homily of 
the bursting flowers, the psalm of the soaring lark, 
the parable of the butterfly. I was thinking upon 
the butterfly when you appeared.” 

“ You are different from Parson Rodney, if it 
please you, sir.” 

“ It does please me, my child ; but, indeed, I am 
sure that there are worse parsons than those who 
take part in the homely sports of their parish, rude 
though some of these sports may be. I wonder if 
your ears are open to the speech — the divine music 
of such a morn as this.” 

“ I love the morning, sir — the smell of the flow- 
ers and the meadows — the lilt of the birds.” 

“ You have felt that they bring gladness into 
our life? I knew that your child’s heart would 
respond to their language — they speak to the heart 
of such as you. And for myself, my thought when 
I found myself drinking in of all the sweet things 
in earth and air and sky — drinking of that over- 
flowing chalice which the morning offered to me — 
my thought — my yearning was for such a voice as 
that which I heard come from everything about me 
on this Spring morning. ‘ Oh, that a man might 
speak to men in the language of this morn ! 9 I 
cried.” 

There was a long pause. His eyes were looking 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 57 


far away from her. He seemed to forget that he 
was addressing anyone. 

She, however, had not taken her eyes off his face. 
She saw the light that came into it while he was 
speaking, and she was silent. It seemed to her to 
speak just then would have been as unseemly as 
to interrupt at one’s prayers. 

But in another moment he was looking at her. 

“You surely are one of the sweet and innocent 
things of this dewy morn,” said he. “ And surely 
you live as do they to the glory of God. Surely you 
were meant to join in creation’s hymn of glory to 
the Creator ! ” 

She bent her head and then shook it. 

“ Nay,” said he, “ you will not be the sole crea- 
ture to remain dumb while the Creator is revealing 
Himself in the reanimation of His world after the 
dark days of Winter, when the icy finger which 
touched everything seemed to be the finger of 
Death ! ” 

His voice had not the inflection of a preacher’s. 
She did not feel as if he were reading her a homily 
that needed no answer. 

But what answer could she make? She was, in- 
deed, so much a part of the things of Nature that, 
like them, she could only utter what was in her 
heart. And what was in her heart except a con- 
sciousness of her own unworthiness? 

“ Ah, sir,” she murmured, “ only last night had 
I for the first time a sense of what I should be.” 

His face lit up again when she spoke. His hands 
clasped, mechanically as it seemed. 

“ I knew it,” he said in a low voice, turning 
away his head. “ I was assured of it. When my 
horse cast his shoe I felt that it was no mischance. 
I heard the voice of a little child calling to me 


58 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


through the night. No doubt crossed my mind. I 
thank Thee — I thank Thee abundantly, O my 
Master ! ” 

Then he turned to Nelly, saying: 

“ Child, my child, we are going the same way. 
Will you give me permission to walk by your side 
for the sake of company? ” 

“ Nay, sir, will not you be weary a-walking? ” 
she said. “ ’Tis a good three mile to the Port, and 
the road is rough when we leave the valley.” 

“ Three miles are not much,” said he, dismount- 
ing. “ The distance will seem as nothing when we 
begin to talk.” 

“ Indeed that is so, sir,” said she. “ Last night 
fled on wings while you were telling us the story 
of the backwoods.” 

“ It fled so fast that I had no time to fulfil my 
promise to ask you about your friends at Port- 
hawn,” said he. “ That is why I am glad of the 
opportunity offered to me this morning. I am anx- 
ious to become acquainted with all sorts and con- 
ditions of people. Now, if I were to meet one of 
your neighbours to-day I should start conversation 
by asking him about you. But is there any reason 
why you should not tell me about yourself? ” 

She laughed, as they set out together, Mr. Wes- 
ley looping his horse’s bridle over his arm. 

“ There is naught to be told about myself, sir; I 
am only the daughter of a fisherman at Porthawn. 
I am the least important person in the world.” 

“ ’Tis not safe, my child, to assign relative de- 
grees of importance to people whom we meet,” said 
he. “ The most seemingly insignificant is very 
precious in the sight of the Master. Who can say 
that the humblest of men or women may not be 
called upon some day to fulfil a great purpose? 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 59 


Have you read history? A very little knowledge 
of history will be enough to bear out what I say. 
When the Master calls He does not restrict Him- 
self to the important folk ; He says to the humblest, 
6 Follow Me and do My work — the work for wiiich 
I have chosen thee.’ God forbid that I should look 
on any of God’s creatures as of no account. What 
is in my thought just now is this: How does it 
come that you, who are, as you have told me, the 
daughter of a fisherman in a small village far re- 
moved from any large city — how does it come that 
you speak as a person of education and some refine- 
ment? Should I be right to assume that all the 
folk at your village are as you in speech and 
bearing? ” 

The little flush of vanity that came to her face 
when he had put his question to her lasted but a 
few seconds. 

She shook her head. 

“ I have had such advantages — I do not know if 
you would look on them as advantages, sir ; but the 
truth is that the Squire’s lady and her daughters 
have been kind to me. My father did the Squire a 
service a long time ago. His son, Master Anthony, 
was carried out to sea in his pleasure boat and 
there was a great gale. My father was the only 
man who ventured forth at the risk of his life to 
save the young gentleman, and he saved him. They 
were two days in the channel in an open boat, and 
my father was well-nigh dead himself through ex- 
haustion. But the young squire was brought back 
without hurt. The Squire and his lady never for- 
got that service. My father was given money to 
carry out the plans that he had long cherished of 
making the port the foremost one for fishing on 
our coast, and the ladies had me taught by their 


60 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


own governess, so that I was at the Court well- 
nigh every day. I know not whether or not it was 
a real kindness.” 

“ It was no real kindness if you were thereby 
made discontented with your home and your 
friends.” 

“ Yes, Mr. Wesley ; that is just what came about. 
I thought myself a deal better than anyone in the 
village — nay, than my own father and mother. I 
had a scorn of those of my neighbours who were 
ignorant of books and music and the working of 
embroidery, and other things that I learned with 
the young ladies. I was unhappy myself, and I 
knew that I made others unhappy.” 

“ Ah, such things have happened before. But 
you seemed on good terms with the miller’s family 
and the others who supped last evening at the Mill. 
And did not you walk all the way from your vil- 
lage carrying that heavy fish for their entertain- 
ment? — our entertainment, I may say, for I was 
benefited with the others.” 

The girl turned her head away ; she seemed some- 
what disturbed in her mind. She did not reply at 
once, and it was in a low voice that she said: 

“A year ago I — I — was brought to see that — 
that — I cannot tell you exactly how it came about, 
sir; ’tis enough for me to say that something hap- 
pened that made me feel I was at heart no differ- 
ent from my own folk, though I had played the 
organ at church many times when Mr. Haylings 
was sick and though the young ladies made much 
of me.” 

Mr. Wesley did not smile. He was greatly inter- 
ested in the story which the girl had told to him. 
Had she told him only the first part he would have 
been able to supply the sequel out of his own expe- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 61 


rience and knowledge of life. Here was this girl, 
possessing the charms of youth and vivacity, indis- 
creetly educated, as people would say, “ above her 
station,” and without an opportunity of mingling 
on equal terms with any except her own people — 
how should she be otherwise than dissatisfied with 
her life? How could she fail to make herself dis- 
agreeable to the homely, unambitious folk with 
whom she was forced to associate? 

He had too much delicacy to ask her how it was 
that she had been brought to see the mistake that 
she had made in thinking slightingly of her own 
kin who remained in ignorance of the accomplish- 
ments which she had acquired? He had no diffi- 
culty in supplying the details which she omitted. 
He could see this poor, unhappy girl being so car- 
ried away by a sense of her own superiority to her 
natural surroundings as to presume upon the good 
nature of her patrons, the result being humiliation 
to herself. 

“ I sympathise with you with all my heart, dear 
child,” he said. “ But the lesson which you have 
had is the most important in your education — the 
most important in the strengthening of your char- 
acter, making you see, I doubt not, that the simple 
virtues are worthy of being held in far higher es- 
teem than the mere graces of life. Your father 
would shake his head over a boat that was beau- 
tifully painted and gilded from stem to stern. 
Would he be satisfied, do you think, to go to sea 
in such a craft on the strength of its gold leaf? 
Would he not first satisfy himself that the painted 
timbers were made of stout wood? ’Tis not the 
paint or the gilding that makes a trustworthy boat, 
but the timber that is beneath. So it is not educa- 
tion nor graceful accomplishments that are most 


62 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


valuable to a man or woman, but integrity, stead- 
fastness of purpose, content. These are the vir- 
tues that tend to happiness. Above all, the most 
highly cultivated man or woman is he or she that 
has cultivated simplicity. I thank you for telling 
me your story in answer to my enquiry. And now 
that you have satisfied my curiosity on this point, 
it may be that you will go so far as to let me know 
why it was that you were filling the room in the 
Mill with shrieks last evening when I entered.” 


CHAPTER VI 


Nelly Polwhele gave a little jump when Mr. 
Wesley had spoken. It had come at last. She had 
done her best to steal away from the explanation 
which she feared she would have to make to him. 
But somehow she did not now dread facing it so 
greatly as she had done in the Mill. She had heard 
that the Reverend Mr. Wesley was severe, as well 
as austere. She had heard his Methodism mocked 
by the fashionable folk at Bath, story after story 
being told of his daring in rebuking the frivolities 
of the day. She had believed him to be an unsym- 
pathetic curmudgeon of a man, whose mission it 
was to banish every joy from life. 

But now that she had heard his voice, so full of 
gentleness — now that his eyes had rested upon her 
in kindliness and sympathy — now that she had 
heard him not disdain to spend an hour telling her 
and her friends that romance of the backwoods, 
thrilling them by his telling of it, her dread of 
being rebuked by him for her levity was certainly 
a good deal less than it had been. Still she looked 
uneasily away from him, and they had taken a 
good many steps in silence together before she 
made an attempt to answer him. And even then 
she did not look at him. 

“ ’Twas a piece of folly, I am afraid, sir,” she 
said in a low tone. “ At least you may esteem it 
folly, though it did not fail to amuse the good 
people at the Mill,” she added in an impulse of 
vanity not to be resisted. 

63 


64 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ I had no doubt that it was a domestic game,” 
said he. “ They were all roaring with laughter. 
Had you heard, as I did, from without, the loud 
laughter of the men and above it the wild, shrill 
shrieks, you would, I am sure, have been as amazed 
as I was.” 

She laughed now quite without restraint. 

“ Bedlam — Bedlam — nothing less than Bedlam 
it must have seemed to you, Mr. Wesley,” she 
said. 

“ I will not contend with you as to the appropri- 
ateness of your description,” said he, smiling, still 
kindly. 

“ The truth is, sir, that I have just returned from 
paying my first visit to the Bath,” said she. “ ’Twas 
the greatest event in my simple life. I went to act 
as dresser to the Squire’s young ladies, and they 
were so good as to allow me to see mostly all that 
there was to be seen, and to hear all that there was 
to be heard.” 

“ What — all? That were a perilous permission 
that your young ladies gave to you.” 

“I know not what is meant by all, but I heard 
much, sir; singers and preachers and players. I 
was taken to the Cave of Harmony for lovely music, 
and to the playhouse, where I saw Mistress Wof- 
fington in one of her merry parts. I was busy 
telling of this when you entered the Mill. I was 
doing my best to shriek like Mistress Woffington.” 

She spoke lightly and with a certain assurance, 
as though she were determined to uphold her claim 
to go whithersoever she pleased. 

She was in a manner disappointed that he did 
not at once show himself to be shocked. But he 
heard her and remained silent himself. Some mo- 
ments passed ; but still he did not speak ; he waited. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 65 


Of course she began to excuse herself; he knew 
that she would do so. The uneasily confident way 
in which she had talked of the playhouse had told 
him that she would soon be accusing herself by 
her excuses without the need for him to open his 
lips. 

“ You will understand, sir, I doubt not, that I 
was but in the position of a servant, though my 
ladies treated me graciously; I could not but obey 
them in all matters,” she said. 

“ Does your saying that mean that you had some 
reluctance in going to the playhouse? ” he asked 
her. 

“ I was not quite — quite — sure,” she replied 
slowly. “ I had heard that the playhouse was a 
wicked place.” 

“ And therefore you were interested in it — is that 
so? ” 

“ But I asked myself, 6 Would my young ladies 
go to the playhouse — would the Squire, who surely 
knows a good deal about wickedness, having lived 
for so many years in London — would the Squire 
and his lady allow them to go to the playhouse if 
there was anything evil in it? ’ ” 

“ And so you went and you were delighted with 
the painted faces on both sides of the stage, and 
you have remained unsettled ever since, so that 
you must needs do your best to imitate an actress 
whose shamelessness of living is in everybody's 
mouth? I know that you imitated this Woffing- 
ton woman to your young ladies when you returned 
warm and excited from the playhouse, and they 
laughed hugely at your skill.” 

Nelly stood' still, so startled was she at the divi- 
nation of her companion. 

« How came you to hear that? ” she cried. 


66 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Were we not alone in the bedroom? Who could 
have told you so much?” 

“ And when you returned to your home you were 
not many hours under its roof before you were 
strutting about feeling yourself to be decked out 
in the fine clothes which you had seen that woman 
wear in the playhouse? ” 

“ You have been talking to someone — was it Jake 
Pullsford? But how could he have known? Oh, 
sir; you seem to have in yourself a power equal to 
that of the water-finder’s wand, only surer by a 
good measure.” 

“And you saw no evil in the playhouse?” he 
said gently. 

“I do not want to go again, Mr. Wesley,” she 
said. “ But indeed I dare ndt say that I saw any 
of the wickedness that I have heard of, in the 
theatre.” 

“ What, are you not in yourself an example of 
the evil? ” said he. 

“ What — I, sir? Surely not, Mr. Wesley. What- 
ever you may have heard you could hear nothing 
against me,” she cried, somewhat indignantly. 

Her indignation lent her boldness and she turned 
to him, saying: 

“ I affirm, sir, and I am not ashamed to do so, 
that I saw nothing of evil in the playhouse, and I 
made up my mind that instead of spending my 
days hidden away in a lonely village far from all the 
pleasures of life, I would try my fortune as an ac- 
tress. I believe that I have some gift of mimicry — 
my ladies told me so. Why, sir, you allowed that 
my shrieks frightened you outside the Mill.” 

“ Child, your feet are on a path perilous,” said 
he. “ You were indignant when I said that you 
were in yourself an example of the evil of going to 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 67 


the playhouse. Every word that you have spoken 
since has gone to prove the truth of my assertion. 
Do you say that the unsettling of your mind is no 
evil due to your visits to the playhouse — the unset- 
tling of your mind, the discontent at your homely 
and virtuous surroundings, the arousing of a fool- 
ish vanity in your heart and the determination to 
take a step that would mean inevitable ruin to such 
as you — ruin and the breaking of your father’s 
heart? ” 

He spoke calmly, and in his voice there was more 
than a suggestion of sorrow. 

She had become pale; she made an attempt to 
face him and repel his accusations, but there was 
something in his face that took all the strength 
out of her. She covered her face with her hands 
and sobbed bitterly. He watched her for some mo- 
ments, and then he put a soothing hand upon her 
arm. 

“ Nay, dear child, be not overcome,” said he. 
“Have you not said to me that you have no wish 
ever to enter the playhouse again? Let that be 
enough. Be assured that I will not upbraid you for 
your possession of that innocence which saved you 
from seeing aught that was wrong in the play or 
the players. Unto the pure all things are pure. 
Unto the innocent all things are harmless. You 
were born for the glory of God. If you let that be 
your thought day and night your feet will be kept 
in the narrow way.” 

She caught his hand and held it in both her own 
hands. 

“ I give you my promise,” she cried, her eyes 
upon his face; they were shining all the more 
brightly through her tears. 

“ Nay, there is no need for you to give me any 


68 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


promise,” he said. “ I will have confidence in 
your fidelity without any promise.” 

“ You will have to reckon with me first, you 
robber ! ” 

They both started at the sound of the voice. It 
came from a scowling man who, unperceived by 
them, had come through a small plantation of pop- 
lars on the slope at one side of the road, and now 
leaped from the bank, high though it was, and 
stood confronting them. 

The girl faced him. 

“ What do you here, John Rennet? ” she cried. 
“ Have you been playing the spy as usual? ” 

“ You are one of them that needs to be watched, 
my girl,” said he. “ You know that I speak the 
truth and that is why you feel it the more bitterly. 
But rest sure that I shall watch you and watch 
you and watch you while I have eyes in my head.” 

He w T as a lank man, who wore his own red hair 
tied in a queue. He had eyes that certainly would 
make anyone feel that the threat which he had 
uttered to the girl was one that he was well quali- 
fied to carry out; they were small and fierce — the 
eyes of a fox when its vigilance is overstrained. 

He kept these eyes fixed upon her for some mo- 
ments, and then turned them with the quickness 
of a flash of light upon Wesley. 

“ I heard what she said and I heard what you 
said, my gentleman,” said he. “ You will have faith 
in her fidelity — the fidelity of Nelly Polwfiele. I 
know not who you are that wears a parson’s bands ; 
but parson or no parson I make bold to tell you 
that you are a fool — the biggest fool on earth if 
you have faith in any promise made by that young 
woman.” 

“ Sir,” said Wesley, “ you called me a thief just 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 63 

now. My knowledge of the falsehood of that accu- 
sation enables me to disregard any slander that you 
may utter against this innocent girl.” 

“ I called you a thief once and I shall call you 
so a second time,” cried the man. “ You have 
stolen the love of this girl from me — nay, ’tis no 
use for you to raise your hand like that. I know 
you are ready to swear that you said nothing ex- 
cept what a good pastor would say to one of his 
flock — swear it, swear it and perjure yourself, as 
usual — all of your cloth do it when the Bishop lays 
his hands upon their wigs, and they swear to devote 
their lives to the souls of their parishes and then 
hasten to their rectories to get on their hunting 
boots — their hunting boots that are never off their 
legs save when they are playing bowls or kneeling 
— kneeling — ay, in the cock-pit.” 

“ Silence, sir!” cried Wesley. “ Pass on your 
way and allow us to proceed on ours.” 

“ I have told your reverence some home truths ; 
and as for yonder girl, who has doubtless tricked 
you as she did me ” 

“ Silence, sir, this instant ! You were coward 
enough to insult a man who you knew could not 
chastise you, and now you would slander a girl! 
There is your way, sir; ours is in the other direc- 
tion.” 

He had his eyes fixed on the man’s eyes, and as he 
faced him he pointed with his riding whip down the 
road. The man stared at him, and then Nelly saw 
all the fierceness go out of his eyes. He retreated 
slowly from Mr. Wesley, as though he were under 
the influence of a force upon which he had not pre- 
viously reckoned. Once he put his hands quickly 
up to his face, as if to brush aside something that 
was oppressing him. His jaw fell, and although he 


70 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


was plainly trying to speak, no words came from 
his parted lips. With a slow indrawing of his 
breath he followed with his eyes the direction indi- 
cated by the other’s riding whip. A horseman was 
trotting toward them, but in the distance. 

Then it was that the man recovered his power of 
speech. 

“ You saw him coming — that emboldened you!” 
he said. “ Don’t fancy that because I was a bit 
dazed that ’twas you who got the better of me. 
I’ll have speech with you anon, and if you still have 
faith in that girl ” 

The sound of the clattering hoofs down the road 
became more distinct. The man took another quick 
glance in the direction of the sound, and then with 
an oath turned and leapt up to the green bank 
beside him. He scrambled up to the top and at 
once disappeared among the trees. 

Wesley and the girl stood watching him, and 
when he had disappeared their eyes took the direc- 
tion that the man’s had taken. A gentleman, splen- 
didly mounted on a roan, with half a dozen dogs — 
a couple of sleek spaniels, a rough sheep dog and 
three terriers — at his heels, trotted up. Seeing the 
girl, he pulled up. 

“ Hillo, Nelly girl ! ” he cried cheerily, when she 
had dropped him a curtsey. “Hillo! Who was 
he that slunk away among the trees? ” 

“’Twas only John Bennet, if you please, par- 
son,” said she. 

“ It doth not please me,” said he. “ The fellow 
is only fit for a madhouse or the county gaol. He 
looked, so far as I could see, as if he was threat- 
ening you or — I ask your pardon, sir; your horse 
hid you.” 

When he had pulled up Mr. Wesley had been on 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 71 


the off side of his horse and half a dozen yards 
apart from the girl; so that the stranger had no 
chance of seeing the bands that showed him to be 
a clergyman. 

“ You arrived opportunely, sir,” he said. “ I 
fear if the man had not perceived you coming in 
the distance, we might have found ourselves in 
trouble.” 

“ What, did the fellow threaten you? Shall I 
set the dogs upon his track? Say the word and 
Til wager you King George against your sorry 
skewbald that he’ll find himself in trouble before 
many minutes are over,” cried the stranger. 

“Nay, sir; the man hath gone and we are un- 
harmed,” said Wesley. 

“The scoundrel! Let me but get him within 
reach of my whip ! ” said the other. “ But the truth 
is, Nelly, that the fellow is more than half de- 
mented through his love for you. And i’ faith, I 
dor’t blame him. Ah, a sad puss you are, Nelly. 
There will not be a whole heart in the Port if you 
do not marry some of your admirers.” 

Then he turned to Wesley, saying: 

“You are a brother parson, sir, I perceive, 
thoigh I do not call your face to mind. Are you 
on jour way to take some duty — maybe ? tis for 
Josh Hilliard; I heard that he had a touch of his 
old enemy. But now that I think on’t ’twould not 
be like Josh to provide a substitute.” 

“ 1 have come hither without having a church 
to preach in, sir; my name is Wesley, John 
Wesley.” 

“ What, the head of the men we christened Meth- 
odists at Oxford? ” 

“The same, sir. I believe that the name hath 
acquired a very honourable significance since those 


72 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


days. I hope that we are all good churchmen, at 
any rate.” 

“I don’t doubt it, Mr. Wesley; but you will not 
preach in my church, sir, of that you may rest 
assured.” 

“You are frank, sir; but pray remember that I 
have not yet asked your permission to do so.” 

The other laughed, and spoke a word or two to 
his horse, who was becoming impatient and was 
only controlled with difficulty. 

“ A fair retort, Mr. Wesley — a fair retort, six,” 
he said. “I like your spirit; and by my word, I 
have a sort of covert admiration for you. I hear 
that none can resist your preaching — not even a 
Bishop. You have my hearty sympathy and goofl 
will, sir, but I will not go to hear you preach. The 
truth is that you are too persuasive, Mr. Weslet, 
and I cannot afford to be persuaded to follow your 
example. I find the Church a very snug nest far 
a younger son with simple country tastes and a 
rare knowledge of whist; I am a practical man, 
sir, and my advice upon occasion lias healed many 
a feud between neighbours. I know a good horss 
and I ride straight to hounds. In the cockpit mt 
umpiring is as good law as the Attorney General 
could construe for a fee of a thousand guineas. Adi 
anyone in this county what is his opinion of Par- 
son Rodney and you will hear the truth as I hate 
told it to you. I wish you luck, Mr. Wesley, but I 
will not countenance your preaching in my churcl ; 
nor will I hear you, lest I should be led by you 
reform my ways, as I suppose you would say ; jl 
am a younger son, and a younger son cannot afford 
to have doubts on the existing state of things, wheji 
the living that he inherits is of the net value ctf 
eight hundred pounds per annum. So fare you 


THE love that PREVAILED 73 

well, sir, and I beg of you not to make my flock 
too discontented with my ten-minute sermons. 
They should not be so, seeing that my sermons are 
not mine ; but for the most part Doctor Tillotson’s 
— an excellent divine, sir — sound — sound and not 
above the heads of our gaffers. Fare thee well, 
Nelly; break as few hearts as thy vanity can do 
with.” 

And Parson Rodney, smiling gallantly, and wav- 
ing his whip gracefully, whistled to his dogs, and 
put his roan to the trot for which he was eager. 

“ An excellent type,” murmured Wesley. “ Alas ! 
but too good a type. Plain, honest, a gentleman; 
but no zeal, no sense of his responsibility for the 
welfare of the souls entrusted to his keeping.” 

He stood for some time watching the man on the 
thoroughbred. Then he turned to Nelly Polwhele, 
saying : 

“ We were interrupted in our pleasant chat; but 
we have still three miles to go. Tell me what the 
people think of Parson Rodney.” 

“ They do not think aught about him, Mr. Wes- 
ley; they all like him: he never preaches longer 
than ten minutes.” 

“ A right good reason for their liking of him — as 
good a reason as he had for liking the Church; it 
doth not exact overmuch from him, and it saves 
him from sponging on his friends. The Church of 
England has ever been an indulgent mother.” 


CHAPTER VII 


Such a sight had never been seen in Cornwall 
before : on this Sunday morning an hour after sun- 
rise every road leading to the village of Porthawn 
had its procession of men, women, and children, 
going to hear the preacher. The roads became 
dusty, as dry roads do when an army of soldiers 
passes over them; and here was an army of soldiers 
along, with its horse and foot and baggage-waggons 
— such an army as had never been in the West 
since the days of Monmouth’s Rebellion; and this 
great march was the beginning of another rebel- 
lion, not destined to fail as the other had failed. 
Without banners, without arms, with no noise, 
with no shoutings of the captains, this great force 
marched to fight — to take part in an encounter that 
proved more lasting in its effects than any recorded 
in the history of England since the days of the 
Norman Invasion. 

The Cornish crowds did not know that they were 
making history. The people had heard rumours of 
the preacher who had awakened the people of Som- 
ersetshire from their sleep of years, and who, on 
being excluded from the churches which had be- 
come Sabbath dormitories, had gone to the fields 
where all was wakefulness, and had here spoken to 
the hearts of tens of thousands. 

The reports that spread abroad by the employ- 
ment of no apparent agency must have contained 
some element that appealed with overwhelming 
power to the people of the West. The impulse that 

74 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


75 


drove quiet folk from their homes and induced them 
to march many miles along dusty roads upon the 
morning of the only day of the week that gave them 
respite from toil was surely stronger than mere 
curiosity. They did not go into the wilderness to 
see a reed shaken by the wind. There was a seri- 
ousness of purpose and a sincerity about these peo- 
ple which must have been the result of a strong 
feeling among them that the existing order of 
things was lacking in some essentials — that the 
Church should become a stimulating force to them 
who were ready to perish, and not remain the apa- 
thetic force that it was when at its best, the 
atrophying influence that it was when at its 
worst. 

That the ground was ready for the sowing was the 
opinion of Wesley, though few signs had been given 
to him to induce this conclusion, but that he had 
not misinterpreted the story of the Valley of Dry 
Bones was proved by the sight of the multitudes 
upon the roads — upon the moorland sheep-tracks — 
upon the narrow lanes where the traffic was car- 
ried on by pack-horses. There they streamed in 
their thousands. Farmers with their wives and 
children seated on chairs in their heavy waggons, 
men astride of everything that was equine — horses 
and mules and asses — some with their wives or sis- 
ters on the pillion behind them, but still more rid- 
ing double with a friend. 

On the w T ayside were some who were resting, hav- 
ing walked seven or eight or ten miles, and had 
seen the sun rise over the hills on that scented 
Spring morning. Some were having their break- 
fast among the primroses under the hedges, some 
were smoking their pipes before setting forth to 
complete their journey. Mothers were nursing 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


their infants beneath the pink and white coral of 
the hawthorns. 

“ ’Tis a fair,” said Hal Holmes to his friend, 
Dick Pritchard, who was seated by his side in a 
small pony cart made by himself during the winter. 

“ Salvation Fair,” hazarded the water-finder. 
“ Salvation Fair I would call it if only I was bold 
enough.” 

The smith shook his head. 

“ That is how it will be styled by many, I doubt 
not,” he said. “ And being as it must be, a strange 
mixture of the two — a church-going and a fair- 
going — I have my fears that ’twill fall ’twixt the 
two. If the thing was more of a failure ’twould be 
a huge success. You take me, Dick?” 

“ Only vague, Hal — only vague, man,” replied 
the water-finder, after a long cogitating pause. 
“ When you spake the words there came a flash 
upon me like the glim from the lanthorn when ’tis 
opened sudden. I saw the meaning clear enough 
like as ’twere a stretch of valley on an uneven night 
of moonlight and cloud. Seemed as if there was 
a rift in your discourse and the moon poured 
through. But then the clouds fled across and I 
walk in the dark. Say’t again, Hal, and it may be 
that ’twill be plain. I have oft thought that your 
speech lit up marvellous well.” 

The blacksmith grinned. 

“ Maybe that is by reason of my w T ork with the 
forge,” he said. “ The furnace is black enough 
until I give it a blast with the bellows and then ’tis 
a very ruby stone struck wi’ lightning.” 

“Maybe — ay, very likely,” said the little man 
doubtfully. 

The smith grinned again. 

“ You don’t altogether see it with my eyes, 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 77 


friend,” lie said. “ How could you, Dick, our 
trades being natural enemies the one to Pother? 
My best friend is fire, yours is water. But what 
was on my mind this moment was the likelihood 
that the light-hearted may be fain to treat this 
great serious field gathering as though it were no 
more than a fair. Now, I say still that if ’twas no 
more than a gathering together of two or three 
parishes none would think of it in light of a fair, 
but being as ? tis — a marvel of moving men and 
women — why, then, there may be levity and who 
knows what worse.” 

“ Ay, it looks as if the carcase of the hills was 
alive and moving with crawling maggots,” re- 
marked Dick. The summit of the hill on the road 
had been reached, and thus a view was given him 
and his companion of the hollow in the valley be- 
yond, which was black with the slow-moving* pro- 
cession. 

And there were many who, while anxious for the 
success of the meeting, shared Hal Holmes’s fears 
and doubts as to its result. What impression could 
one man make upon so vast an assembly in the open 
air, they asked of each other. They shook their 
heads. 

These were the sober-minded people who sympa- 
thised with the aims of the preacher — God-fearing 
men and women to whom his hopes had been com- 
municated. They knew that hundreds in that pro- 
cession on the march to the meeting-place were no 
more serious than they would be had they been 
going to a fair. They were going to meet their 
friends, and they were impelled by no higher mo- 
tives than those which were the result of the in- 
stinct of the gregarious animals. Many of them 
lived far away from a town or even a village, in the 


78 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


wilder parts of the Duchy, and they laid hold on 
an opportunity that promised to bring them in con- 
tact with a greater crowd than they had ever joined 
before. The joy of being one of the crowd was 
enough for them ; the preaching was only an insig- 
nificant incident in the day’s proceedings. The 
sober-minded, knowing this, were afraid that in 
these people the spirit of levity might be aroused, 
especially if they could not hear the words of the 
preacher, and the consequences would be disas- 
trous. 

And doubtless there were hundreds of the dwell- 
ers along the coast who would have been pleased 
if grief came to an enterprise that threatened their 
employment as smugglers or the agents of smug- 
glers. Smuggling and wrecking were along the 
coast, and pretty far inland as well, regarded as a 
legitimate calling. Almost everyone participated 
in the profits of the contraband, and the majority of 
the clergy would have been very much less con- 
vivial if they had had to pay the full price for their 
potations. Preaching against such traffic would 
have been impolitic as well as hypocritical, and the 
clergy were neither. The parson who denounced 
his congregation for forsaking the service on the 
news of a wreck reaching the church was, probably, 
a fair type of his order. His plea was for fair play. 
“ Let us all start fair for the shore, my brethren.” 

Such men had a feeling that the man who had 
come to preach to the multitude would be pretty 
sure to denounce their fraud; or if he did not act- 
ually denounce it he might have such an influence 
upon their customers as would certainly be preju- 
dicial to the trade. This being so, how could it be 
expected that they should not look forward to the 
failure of the mission? 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 79 


And there was but a solitary man to contend 
against this mixed multitude! There was but one 
voice to cry in that wilderness — one voice to 
awaken those who slept. The voice spoke, and its 
sound echoed round the wide world. 

He stood with bared head, with a rock for his 
pupit, on a small plateau overlooking a long stretch 
of valley. On each side there was an uneven, slop- 
ing ground — rocks overgrown with lichen, and high 
tufts of coarse herbage between, with countless 
blue wild flowers and hardy climbing plants. The 
huge basin formed by the converging of the slopes 
made a natural amphitheatre, where ten thousand 
people might be seated. Behind were the cliffs, 
and all through the day the sound of the sea beat- 
ing around their bases mingled with the sound of 
many voices. A hundred feet to the west there 
hung poised in its groove the enormous rocking 
stone of Red Tor. 

Perhaps amongst the most distant of his hearers 
there was one who might never again have an op- 
portunity of having the word that awakens spoken 
in his hearing. There might be one whose heart was 
as the ground in Summer — waiting for the seed to 
be sown that should bring forth fruit, sixtyfold or 
an hundredfold. That was what the man thought 
as he looked over the vast multitude. He felt for a 
moment overwhelmed by a sense of his responsi- 
bility. He felt that by no will of his own he had 
been thrust forward to perform a miracle, and he 
understood clearly that the responsibility of its per- 
formance rested with him. 

For a moment the cry of the overwhelmed was in 
his heart. 

“ It is too much that is laid upon me.” 

For a moment he experienced that sense of re- 


80 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


bellion which in a supreme moment of their lives — 
the moment preceding a great achievement for the 
benefit of the world — takes possession of so many 
of the world’s greatest, and which has its origin in 
a feeling of humility. It lasted but for a moment. 
Then he found that every thought of his mind — 
every sense of his soul — was absorbed by another 
and greater force. He had a consciousness of being 
possessed by a Power that dominated every sensa- 
tion of his existence. That Power had thrust him 
out from himself as it were, and he felt that he was 
standing by wondering while a voice that he did 
not know to be his own went forth, and he knew 
that it reached the most remote of the people before 
him. It was like his own voice heard in a dream. 
For days there had been before his eyes the vision 
that had come to the prophet — the vision of the 
Valley of Dry Bones. He had seemed to stand by 
the side of the man to whom it had been revealed. 
He had always felt that the scene was one of the 
most striking that had ever been depicted ; but dur- 
ing the week it was not merely its mysticism that 
had possessed him. He felt that it was a real oc- 
currence taking place before his very eyes. 

And now he was standing on his rock looking all 
through that long valley, and he saw — not the thou- 
sands of people who looked up to him, but ranks 
upon ranks and range upon range of dead men’s 
bones, bleaching in the sunshine — filling up all the 
hollows of the valley forsaken of life, overhung by 
that dread legend of a battle fought so long ago 
that its details had vanished. There they stretched, 
hillocks of white bones — ridges of white bones — 
heaps upon heaps. The winds of a thousand years 
had wailed and shrieked and whistled, sweeping 
through the valley, the rains of a thousand years 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 81 


had been down upon them — hail and snow had flung 
their pall of white over the whiteness of the things 
that lay there, the lightnings had made lurid the 
hollow places in the rocks, and had rent in sunder 
the overhanging cliffs — there was the sign of such 
a storm — the tumbled tons of black basalt that lay 
athwart one of the white hillocks — and on nights 
of fierce tempest the white foam from the distant 
sea had been borne through the air and flung in 
quivering flakes over cliffs and into chasm — upon 
coarse herbage and the blue rock flowers. But some 
nights were still. The valley was canopied with 
stars. And there were nights of vast moonlight, 
and the white moonlight spread itself like a great 
translucent lake over the white deadness of that 
dreary place. . . . 

The man saw scene after scene in that valley as 
in a dream. And then there came a long silence, 
and out of that silence he heard the voice that said : 

“Can these dead bones live? ” 

There was another silence before the awful voice 
spoke the command: 

“ Let these bones live ! ” 

Through the moments of silence that followed, 
the sound of the sea was borne by a fitful breeze 
over the cliff face and swept purring through the 
valley. 

Then came the moment of marvel. There was a 
quivering here and there — something like the long 
indrawing of breath of a sleeper who lias slept for 
long but now awakens — a slow heaving as of a 
giant refreshed, and then in mysterious, dread si- 
lence, with no rattling of hollow skeleton limbs, 
there came the great moving among the dry bones, 
and they rose up, an exceeding great army. 

Life had come triumphant out of the midst of 


82 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


Death. That was what the voice said. The whole 
valley, which had been silent an hour before, was 
now vibrating, pulsating with life — the tumult of 
life which flows through a great army — every man 
alert, at his post in his rank — waiting for whatever 
might come — the advance of the enemy, the carry- 
ing out of the strategy of the commander. 

Life had come triumphant out of the midst of 
death, and who would dare now to say that the 
deepest spiritual life might not lie hidden from 
sight among the bleaching heaps of dead bones that 
strewed the valley from cliffs to cliffs — hidden but 
only waiting for the voice to cry aloud : 

“ Let these bones live ! ” 

“ Oh, that that Dread Voice would speak through 
me ! ” cried the preacher. 

That was the first time he became conscious of 
the sound of his own voice, and he was startled. 
He had heard that other voice speaking, carrying 
him aw T ay upon the wings of its words down 
through the depths of that mystic valley, but now 
all was silent and he was standing with trembling 
hands and quivering lips, gazing out over no val- 
ley of mystery alive with a moving host, but over 
a Cornish vale of crags; and yet there beneath his 
eyes were thousands of faces, and they looked like 
the faces of such as had been newly awakened after 
a long sleep — dazed — wondering — waiting. . . . 

He saw it. The great awakening had come to 
these people, and now they were waiting — for what? 

He knew what he had to offer them. He knew 
what was the message with which he had been en- 
trusted — the good news which they had never heard 
before. 

And he told it with all simplicity, in all humility, 
in all sincerity — the evangel of boundless love — of 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 83 


illimitable salvation, not from the wrath to come — 
he had no need to speak of the Day of Wrath — his 
theme was the Day of Grace — salvation from the 
distrust of God’s mercy — salvation from the doubts, 
from the cares of the world, from the lethargy that 
fetters the souls of men, from the gross darkness 
and from the complacency of walking in that dark- 
ness. 

He let light in upon their darkness and he forced 
them to see the dangers of the dark, and, seeing, 
they were overwhelmed. For the first time these 
people had brought before their eyes the reality of 
sin — the reality of salvation. They had had doc- 
trines brought before them in the past, but the tale 
of doctrines had left them unmoved. They had 
never felt that doctrines were otherwise than cold, 
impassioned utterances. Doctrines might have 
been the graceful fabrics that clothed living truths, 
but the truth had been so wrapped up in them that 
it had remained hidden so far as they were con- 
cerned. They had never caught a glimpse of the 
living reality beneath. 

But here was the light that showed them the 
living thing for which they had waited, and the 
wonder of the sight overwhelmed them. 

The voice of the preacher spoke to them individ- 
ually. That was the sole mystery of the preaching 
— the sole magnetism (as it has been called) of the 
preacher. 

And that was the sole mystery of the manifes- 
tation that followed. Faces were streaming with 
tears, knees were bowed in prayer; but there were 
other temperaments that were forced to give ex- 
pression to their varied feelings — of wonder, of 
humiliation, of exultation. These were not to be 
controlled. There were wild sobbings, passionate 


84 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


cries, a shout or two of thanksgiving, an outburst 
of penitence — all the result of the feelings too 
strong to be controlled, and all tokens of the new 
life that had begun to pulsate in that multitude — 
all tokens that the Valley which had been strewn 
with dry bones had heard the voice that said : 

“ Let these dry bones live.” 

There was a great moving among the dry bones, 
and they stood up, an exceeding great army. 


CHAPTER VIII 


His preaching had ceased, but the note that he 
had struck continued to vibrate through the valley. 
He had spoken with none of the formality of the 
priest who aims at keeping up a certain aloofness 
from the people. This Mr. Wesley had spoken as 
brother to brother, and every phrase that he uttered 
meant the breaking down of another of the barriers 
which centuries had built up between the pulpit 
and the people. 

They proved that they felt this to be so when he 
came among them. Warm hands were stretched 
out to meet his own — words of blessing were 
ejaculated by such as were able to speak; but in- 
finitely more eloquent were the mute expressions 
of the feeling of the multitude. Some there were 
who could not be restrained from throwing them- 
selves upon his shoulders, clasping him as if he had 
indeed been their brother from whom they had been 
separated for long; others caught his hands and 
kissed them. Tears were still on many faces, and 
many were lighted up with an expression of rapture 
that transfigured their features. 

He made no attempt to restrain any of the ex- 
travagances to which that hour had given birth. 
He knew better than to do so. He had read of the 
extravagant welcome given by the people of a town 
long besieged to the envoys who brought the first 
news of the approach of the relieving force, and 
he knew that he was there as an envoy to tell the 
people about him of their release. He had him- 
self witnessed the reception given to the King’s 

85 


$6 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

Posts that brought the tidings of the last peace, and 
he knew that he himself was a King’s Messenger, 
bearing to these people the tidings of Peace and 
Goodwill. 

He had a word of kindness and comfort and ad- 
vice to all. He was an elder brother, talking to 
the members of his own family on equal terms. 
But soon he left the side of these new-found 
brethren, for his eyes had not failed to see some 
who were sitting apart among the low crags — some 
in silent dejection, bearing the expression of pris- 
oners for whom no order of release has come, 
though they had seen it come for others. But all 
were not silent: many were moaning aloud with 
ejaculations of despair. In the joy that had been 
brought to their friends they had no share. Nay, 
the message that had brought peace to others had 
brought despair to them. They had been happy 
enough before, knowing nothing of or caring noth- 
ing for, the dangers that surrounded them in the 
darkness, and the letting in of the light upon them 
had appalled them. 

He was beside them in a moment, questioning 
them, soothing their fears, removing their doubts, 
whispering a word or two of prayer in their ears. 
Jake, the carrier, had been right : the preacher had 
balm for the wounds of those who suffered. He 
went about among them for hours, not leaving the 
side of any who doubted until their doubts had been 
removed and they shared the happiness that the 
Great Message brought with it. But the evangel 
had arisen upon that valley as the Daystar, with 
healing in its wings. 

When the multitude dispersed, the church bells 
were making melody over the hills and through the 
dales. The Reverend Mr. Wesley was a good 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 8T 

churchman, and he took care that his preaching did 
not interfere with the usual services. His object 
was to fill the churches with devout men, and not 
merely the body of the churches, but the pulpits as 
well. 

For himself, he withdrew from his friends and 
walked slowly up one of the tracks leading to the 
summit of the cliffs a few miles beyond the village 
of Porthawn. He wished to be alone, for amid all 
his feelings of thankfulness for the good which he 
knew had been done through his preaching, there 
came to him a doubt. Had he been faithful in 
his delivery of the Message? Had he yielded 
up everything of self to the service of the Master? 
Had he said a word that might possibly become a 
stone of stumbling to the feet that had just set out 
upon the narrow way? 

That was the fear which was ever present with 
him — the possibility that the Message had failed in 
its power by reason of his frailty in delivering it — 
the possibility that he might attribute to himself 
some of the merit of the Message. 

The hours which he passed in loneliness almost 
every day of his life, the solitary rides covering 
thousands of miles, his long walks without a com- 
panion, were devoted to self renunciation. He 
was more afraid of himself than of any enemy from 
without. He sometimes found himself in such a 
frame of mind as caused him to admire the spirit 
that led the priests of the heathen beliefs in the 
East to torture and mutilate themselves in the at- 
tainment of what appeared to them to be holiness. 
He knew that their way was not the right way, and 
the object which they strove to achieve was not a 
worthy one; but he could not deny the self-sacrifice 
and its value. 


88 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


Yes, but was it not possible that self-sacrifice 
might, if performed ostentatiously, become only 
another form of self-glorification? 

It was only now that this thought flashed upon 
him. He had walked along the cliff path for a 
mile or two, and soon became aware of the pangs 
of hunger. It was nothing for him to set out to 
preach without having more than a bite or two of 
bread, and to go fasting until the afternoon, ne 
had never regarded this as an act of self-sacrifice. 
But how had he felt when some of his friends had 
made much of these facts, entreating him to be 
more mindful of his health? Had he not felt a 
certain pride in thinking that his health was re- 
garded as important? 

And now, when he should return to the house 
where he was a guest — it was the house of a Mr. 
Hartwell, the owner of a mine in the tin district 
some distance from Porthawn — would not his hours 
of fasting preceding and following the exertion of 
preaching to so great a multitude in the open air 
make him appear akin to a martyr in the eyes of the 
people with whom he might come in contact? 

Nay, could he deny that he felt some vanity in 
the reflection that here again he would be seri- 
ously remonstrated with for his disregard of him- 
self? 

Even his orderly mind was unable to differentiate 
between the degrees of self-sacrifice and self-satis- 
faction involved in this simple question of fasting 
and eating, and he was troubled that his attempts 
to do so were not wholly successful. It was like 
the man that, in his hours of exhaustion, he should 
be dissatisfied with what was really the result of 
his exhaustion. This trivial self-examination was, 
though he did not know it, only the result of his 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 89 


neglect of the wants of his body. Yes, but this fact 
did not make it the less worrying to him. 

He had been led by the charm of the day to walk 
farther than he had intended, and he was so ex- 
hausted that he found it necessary to rest in a dip 
of the cliffs above the little bay. On each side of 
him stretched the broken shore, a short crescent 
patch of sand at every dip in that long, uneven wall, 
and marking the outline of its curve was the white 
floss of the lazy ripples. Behind him was the 
coarse sand-herbage of the broken shore, and in 
front of him stretched the sea. A white bird or 
two hovered between the waters and the cliff sum- 
mit, and far away a revenue cutter showed its 
white sails. Sunlight was over all. The warm air 
seemed imbued with the presence of God, which all 
might breathe and become at peace with all the 
world. 

It came over the face of the waters, upon the 
face of the man who reclined upon a cushion of 
springy herbage that quite hid the shape of the 
rock at whose base it found root. The feathery 
touch upon his brow soothed him as a mother’s 
hand soothes her child and banishes its distrust. 
He lay there and every doubt that had oppressed 
him vanished. He was weary and hungry, but he 
felt that the grace of heaven was giving him food 
in the strength of which he might wander in the 
wilderness for forty days. 

He closed his eyes and with the faint hum of the 
little bees that droned among the blue cliff -flowers, 
— with the faint wash of the ripples upon the un- 
numbered pebbles of the beach — a sweet sleep crept 
over him. 

When he awoke it was not with a start, but as 
gently as he had fallen asleep. For a moment he 


90 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


had a fear that he had overslept himself. He 
turned to look at the sun and saw standing only 
half a dozen yards away the girl by whose side he 
had walked a few mornings before to the village. 

The picture that she made to his eyes was in 
keeping with the soothing sights and sounds of this 
placid day. She wore a white kirtle and cap, but 
the latter had failed to restrain the abundant hair 
which showed itself in little curls upon her fore- 
head, and in long strands of sunshine over her ears 
and behind them. She was pleasant to look at — as 
pleasant as was everything else of nature on this 
day; and he looked at her with pleased eyes for 
some time before speaking. 

As for Nelly, she was not watching him; but he 
could see that she had seen him ; she had only turned 
away lest he should have a man’s distaste to be 
caught sleeping in the daytime. He perceived this 
the moment that he spoke and she turned to him. 
The little start that she gave was artificial. It 
made him smile. 

“ I am at your mercy ; but you will not betray 
my weakness to anyone,” he said, smiling at her. 

“Oh, sir!” she cried, raising her hands. 

“ You saw me sleeping. I hope that ’twas not 
for long,” he said. 

“I did not come hither more than five minutes 
agone, sir,” she replied. “You cannot have slept 
more than half an hour. I came to seek you after 
the preaching.” 

“ You have not been at your church, girl? ” he 
said. 

“ I was at your church, Mr. Wesley. I like Par- 
son Rodney. I did not go to his church.” 

He shook his head. 

“ I like not such an answer, child. ’Twould 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 91 

grieve me to learn that there were many of my 
hearers who would frame the same excuse.” 

She hung her head. 

“ I am sorry, sir,” she said. “ It was my intent 
to go to Parson Rodney’s church, if only to see how 
vast a difference there was ’twixt — that is — I mean, 
Mr. Wesley, that — that my intention was to be in 
church, only when I saw that you had wended your 
way alone through the valley, not going in the direc- 
tion of Mr. Hartwell’s house, but far away from it 
— what could one do, sir, who knew that you could 
not have had a bite to eat since early morning — 
and after such a preaching and an after-meeting 
that filled up another fasting hour? 4 He has no 
one to look after him,’ said my mother in my ear. 
‘He is a forlorn man who thinks that he is doing 
God’s service by forgetting that his body must be 
nourished if his soul is to remain sound.’ ” 

“ That is what your mother said — ’tis shrewd 
enough. And what did you reply? Mind that the 
answer hath a bearing upon your staying away from 
church, Nelly.” 

“ I said naught, Mr. Wesley; but what I did was 
to hurry to our home and pack you a basket of 
humble victuals and — here it is.” 

She picked up a reed basket from the grass and 
brought it beside him. Kneeling then on a stone 
she raised the lid and showed him a dish of cooked 
pilchards, some cakes of wheat bread and a piece 
of cream cheese laid on a pale green lettuce. 

She had spread the coarsest and whitest napkin 
he had ever seen on the face of the crag at his 
elbow, and with the air of a bustling housewife 
laid a plate and knife and fork for him, talking all 
the time — reproving him quite gravely and even 
severely for his inattention to his stomach — there 


92 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


was no picking and choosing of words in Cornwall 
or elsewhere during that robust century. She 
gave him no chance of defending himself, but rat- 
tled on upbraiding him as if he had been a negligent 
schoolboy, until she had laid out his picnic for him, 
and had spread the butter on one of the home-made 
cakes, saying: 

“ There, now, you must not get upon your feet 
until you have put down all that is before you. If 
you was to make the attempt to do so your long 
fast would make you so faint that you would run a 
chance of tottering over the cliff.” 

He saw that there was no need for him to say a 
word. What could he say in the face of such atten- 
tion to his needs as the girl was showing? 

“ I submit with a good grace, my dear,” he said 
when her work was done and she paused for breath. 
“ Why should not I submit? I am, as you said, 
weak by reason of hunger, and lo, a table is spread 
for me with such delicacies as would tickle the ap- 
petite of a man who has just partaken of a heavy 
meal, and I am not that man. Happier than the 
prophet, I am fed not by ravens, but by a white 
dove.” 

“ Oh, sir,” she said, her face shining with pleas- 
ure. “ Oh, sir, I protest that even in the genteelest 
society at the Bath, I never had so pretty a com- 
pliment paid to me.” 

He had paid his compliment to her in a delicate 
spirit of bantering, so as to make no appeal to her 
vanity, and he saw that her pleasure was not the 
result of gratified vanity. 

“ But concerning yourself, my dear,” he cried 
when he had his fork in his hand, but had as yet 
touched nothing. “ If I was fasting you must be 
also.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 93 


“ What, sir, did I omit to say that I returned to 
my home after your preaching? ” she said. “ Oh, 
yes; I got the basket there and the pilchards. My 
father despises pilchards, but I hope that you ” 

“ I am a practical man, Nelly, and I know, with- 
out the need to make a calculation on paper, that 
you could not be more than a few minutes in your 
cottage, and that all that time was spent by you 
over my basket. I know such as you — a hasty 
mouthful of cake and a spoonful of milk and you 
say, ‘ I have dined.’ Now I doubt much if you had 
so much as a spoonful of milk, and therefore I 
say that unless you face me at this table of stone, I 
will eat nothing of your store ; and I know that that 
would be the greatest punishment I could inflict 
upon you. Take your place, madam, at the head 
of the table.” 

She protested. 

“ Nay, sir, I brought not enough for two — barely 
enough to sustain one that is a small feeder until 
he has the opportunity of sitting down to a regular 
meal.” 

“ I have spoken,” he said. “ I need but a bite ! 
Oh, the long fasting journeys that I have had 
within the year ! ” 

She still hesitated, but when, at last, she seated 
herself, she did not cause him to think that he had 
made her feel ill at ease ; she adapted herself to the 
position into which he had forced her, from the 
moment she sat opposite to him. She forgot for the 
time that he was the preacher on whom thousands 
of men and women had hung a couple of hours be- 
fore, and that she, if she had not been with him, 
would have been eating in a fisherman’s cottage. 

She had acquired, through her association with 
the Squire’s young ladies, something of their man- 


94 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


ners. Her gift of quick observation was allied to 
a capacity to copy wliat she observed, and being, 
womanlike, well aware of this fact, she had no 
reason to feel otherwise than at ease while she ate 
her share of the pilchards, and made him feel all 
the time that she was partaking of his hospitality. 

As for the preacher, he felt the girl’s thoughtful- 
ness very deeply. It seemed that she was the only 
one of the thousands who had stood before him that 
had thought for his needs. Her tact and the grace- 
ful way in which she displayed it, even down to 
her readiness to sit with him lest he should feel 
that she was remaining hungry, pleased him; and 
her chat, abounding with shrewdness, was grace- 
fully frank. He felt refreshed beyond measure by 
her freshness, and he rose to walk to the house 
where he was a guest, feeling that it was, indeed, 
good for him to have changed the loneliness of his 
stroll for the companionship which she offered him. 


CHAPTER IX 


The question had often been discussed by him 
to the furthest point possible (as he thought) for 
its consideration to be extended; and how was it 
that he found himself debating it at this time in 
its crudest form? He had long ago settled it to 
his own satisfaction, that his life was to be a lonely 
one through the world. Not for him were to be 
the pleasant cares of home or wife or child. Not 
for him was the tenderness of woman — not for him 
the babble of the little lips, every quiver of which 
is a caress. His work was sufficient for him, he 
had often said, and the contemplation of the possi- 
bility of anything on earth coming between him and 
his labours, filled him with alarm. He felt that if 
he were to cease to be absorbed in his work, he 
should be unfaithful to his trust. The only one 
that was truly faithful was the one who was ready 
to give up all to follow in the footsteps of the 
Master. 

But being human and full of human sympathy, 
he had often felt a moment’s envy entering the house 
of one of his friends who was married and become 
the father of children. The hundred little occur- 
rences incidental to a household, where there was a 
nursery and a schoolroom, were marked by him — 
the clambering of little chubby legs up to the 
father’s knee — the interpretation of the latest 
phrase that fell from baby lips— the charm of 
golden silk curls around an innocent child’s face— 
all these and a score of other delights associated 

95 


96 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


with the household had appealed to him, giving him 
an hour’s longing at the time, and a tender recol- 
lection at intervals in after years. 

“Not for me — not for me,” he had said. So 
jealous was he of his work that, as has been noted, 
the possibility of his becoming absorbed — even par- 
tially — by anything that was not directly pertaining 
to his work, was a dread to him. He set himself the 
task of crushing down within him every aspiration 
that might tend to interfere with the carrying out 
of the labour of his life, and he believed that, by 
stern and strict endeavour, he had succeeded in 
doing so. 

Then why should he now find himself considering 
the question which he believed he had settled for- 
ever? Why should he now begin to see that the 
assurance that it was not good for a man to be 
alone was based upon a knowledge of men and was 
wise? 

He found an apt illustration of the wisdom of the 
precept in the conduct of the girl who had shown 
such thoughtfulness in regard to him. “ Mentem 
mortalia tangunt,” was the sors Virgiliana which 
came to his mind at the moment. He recognised 
the truth of it. A man was affected by the material 
conditions of his life. If the girl had not shown 
such thought for his comfort, he would well-nigh 
have been broken down by his exhausting labours 
of the day, followed up by an exhausting walk along 
the cliffs. He might not have returned to the 
house at which he was staying in time to dine, be- 
fore setting out for a long drive to another place 
for an afternoon’s meeting. So absorbed was he 
apt to be in his preaching that he became oblivious 
to every consideration of daily life. What were to 
him such trivial matters as eating and drinking at 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 97 


regular intervals? He neglected the needs of his 
body, and only when he had suffered for so doing 
did he feel that his carelessness was culpable. On 
recovering from its immediate effects, however* he 
fell back into his old habits. 

But now the thought that came to him was that 
he had need for someone to be by his side as (for 
example) Nelly Polwhele had been. He knew quite 
well, without having had the experience of married 
life, that if he had had a wife, he would not have 
been allowed to do anything so unwise as to walk 
straight away from the preaching to the cliffs, hav- 
ing eaten nothing since the early morning, and then 
only a single cake of bread. A good wife would 
have drawn him away from the people to whom he 
was talking, to the house where he was a guest, and 
when there have set about providing for him the 
food which he lacked and the rest which he needed 
to restore him after his arduous morning’s work, so 
that he might set out for the afternoon’s preaching 
feeling as fresh as he had felt in the morning. 

He was grateful to the girl, not only for her at- 
tention to him, but also for affording him an illus- 
tration favourable to his altered way of looking at 
a question which he fancied had long ago been set- 
tled forever in his mind. (He had long ago forgiven 
the woman, who, in America, had taught him to 
believe that a life of loneliness is more conducive 
to one’s peace of mind than a life linked to an un- 
sympathetic companion.) 

And having been led to such a conclusion, it was 
only reasonable that he should make a resolution 
that, if he should ever be so fortunate as to meet 
with a virtuous lady whom he should find to possess 
those qualities which promised most readily to ad- 
vance the work which he had at heart, he would not 


98 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


be slow to ask her to be his companion to such an 
end. 

This point settled' to his satisfaction (as he 
thought), he mounted his horse, after a week’s stay 
in the valley of the Lana, and made his way to the 
tinners of Camlin, twenty miles further along the 
coast. Here he was received with open arms, and 
preached from his rock pulpit to thousands of 
eager men and women an hour*after sunrise on a 
summer morning. 

On still for another fortnight, in wilder districts, 
among people who rarely entered a church, and 
whom the church made no attempt to reach. These 
were the people for him. He was told that he was 
going forth to sow the seed in stony ground, but 
when he came and began to sow, he found that it fell 
upon fruitful soil. Here it was impossible for him 
to find a huge congregation, so scattered were the 
inhabitants. But this was no obstacle to him : he 
asked for no more than a group of hearers in every 
place, and by the time that night came he found 
that he had preached to thousands since sunrise. 
Beginning sometimes at five o’clock in the morn- 
ing, he would preach on the outskirts of a village 
and hold a second service before breakfasting six 
miles away. It was nothing for him to preach 
half a dozen times and ride thirty miles in one of 
these days. 

But as he went further and further on this won- 
derful itinerary of his, that sense of loneliness of 
which he had become aware at Porthawn seemed to 
grow upon him. During those intervals of silence 
which he spent on horseback, his feeling of loneli- 
ness appeared to increase, until at last there came 
upon him a dread lest he should affect his labours. 
He had a fear that a despondent note might find its 


THE LOVE TlAT PREVAILED 99 

way into his preaching, and when under such an 
influence he made a strong effort in the opposite 
direction, he was conscious of an artificial note; 
and, moreover, by the true instinct of the man who 
talks to men, he was conscious that it was detected 
by his hearers. 

He was disappointed in himself — humiliated. 
How was it that for years he had been able to 
throw off this feeling of walking alone, through the 
world, or making no effort to throw it off, to glory 
in it, as it were — to feel all the stronger because of 
it, inasmuch as it could not come without bringing 
with it the reflection that he — he alone — had been 
chosen to deliver the message to the multitudes — 
the message of Light to the people that walked in 
darkness? 

He could not understand how the change had 
come about in him, and not being able to under- 
stand it, he felt the more humiliated. 

And then, one day, riding slowly along the coach 
road, he saw a young woman standing waiting for 
a change of horses for her post chaise at the door 
of a small inn. 

He started, for she had fair hair and a fresh face 
whose features bore some resemblance to those of 
Nelly Polwhele — he started, for there came upon 
him, with the force of a revelation, the knowledge 
that this was the companionship for which he was 
longing — that unconsciously, she had been in his 
thoughts — some way at the back of his thoughts, 
to be sure, but still there — that, only since he had 
been her companion had his need for some sweet 
and helpful companionship become impressed upon 
him. 

He rode on to his destination overwhelmed by the 
surprise at the result of this glimpse which had been 


100 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


given to him into the depths of his own heart. The 
effect seemed to him as if with the sight of that 
stranger — that young woman on the roadside — a 
flash of lightning had come, showing him in an in- 
stant what was in the depths of his heart. 

He tried to bring himself to believe that he was 
mistaken. 

“ Impossible — impossible ! ” he cried. “ It is im- 
possible that I should be so affected — a village girl ! 
. . . And I did not talk with her half a> dozen times 
in all! . . . Kind, thoughtful, with tact — a gra- 
cious presence, a receptive mind. . . . Ah, it was 
she undoubtedly who set me thinking — who made 
me feel dissatisfied with my isolation, but still . . . 
oh, impossible — impossible ! ” 

And, although a just man, the thoughts that he 
now believed himself to have in regard to Nelly 
Polwhele were bitter rather than sweet. He began 
to think that it was too bold of her — almost im- 
modest — to make the attempt to change the whole 
course of the life of such a man as he was. He had 
once courted the lonely life, believing it to be the 
only life for such as he — the only life that enabled 
him to give all his thoughts — all his strength — oh, 
all his life — all his life — to the work which had been 
appointed for him to do in the world of sinners ; but 
lo! that child had come to him, and had made him 
feel that he was not so different from other men. 

Under the influence of his bitterness, he resented 
her intrusion, as it were. Pshaw! the girl was 
nothing. It was only companionship as a senti- 
ment that he had been longing for; he had a clear 
idea of the companionship that he needed; but he 
had never thought of the companion. It was a 
mere trick of the fancy to suggest that, because the 
young woman had sent his thoughts into a certain 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 101 


groove, they must of necessity be turned in the di- 
rection of the young woman herself. 

He soon found, however, that it is one thing for 
a man to prove to the satisfaction of his own in- 
telligence that it would be impossible that he 
should set his heart on a particular young woman, 
but quite another to shut her out from his heart. 
He had his heart to reckon with, though he did not 
know it. 

Before the day had passed he had shut the doors 
of his heart, and he believed that he had done right. 
He did not know that he had shut those doors, not 
against her, but upon her. 

Like all men who have accomplished great things 
in the world, he was intensely human. His sym- 
pathy flowed forth for his fellow-men in all cir- 
cumstances of life. But he did not know himself 
sufficiently well to understand that what he thought 
of with regret as his weaknesses, were actually 
those elements wherein lay the secret of his influ- 
ence with men. 

He had just succeeded, he fancied, in convinc- 
ing himself that it was impossible he could ever 
have entertained a thought of Nelly Polwhele as 
the one who could afford him the companionship 
which he craved, when a letter came to him from 
Mr. Hartwell, whom he had appointed the leader 
of the class which he had established at Porthawn, 
entreating him to return to them, as they were in 
great distress and in peril of falling to pieces, owing 
to the conduct of one of their members, Richard 
Pritchard by name. 

Could he affirm that the sorrow which he felt on 
receiving this news was the sum of all the emotions 
that filled his heart at that moment? 

He laid down the letter, saying, 


102 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ It is the Lord’s doing.” 

And when he said that, he was thinking, not of 
the distress in which his children at Porthawn 
found themselves by reason of Richard Pritchard, 
but of the meaning of the summons to himself. 

“ It is the trial to which my steadfastness is to be 
put,” he said. “ I am not to be allowed to escape 
without scathe. Why should I expect to do so 
when others are tried daily? There can be no vic- 
tory without a battle. The strength of a man is 
developed by his trial. I am ready. Grant me 
grace, O Lord, to sustain me, and to keep my feet 
from straying ! ” 

He prepared himself for this journey back to 
Porthawn, and he was presently amazed (having 
been made aware of his own weakness) to find 
himself thinking very much less about himself and 
scarcely at all about Nelly Polwhele, nor that the 
chance of seeing her again had, without the least 
expectation on his part, came to him. He found 
himself giving all his thoughts to the question of 
his duty. Had he been over-hasty in accepting the 
assurances of all these people at Porthaw n to whose 
souls peace had come through his preaching? Was 
he actuated solely by a hope to spread abroad the 
Truth as he had found it, or had a grain of the 
tares of Self been sow T n among the good seed? Had 
there been something of vanity in his desire to in- 
crease the visible results of his preaching? 

These w T ere his daily questionings and soul- 
searching, and they had been ever present with him 
since he had put his hand to the plough. He was 
ever apt to accuse himself of vainglory — of a lack of 
that spirit of humility which he felt should enter 
into every act — every thought of his life. He 
thought of himself as the instrument through which 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 103 

his Master spake to His children. Should the harp 
vaunt itself when a hand sweeps over its strings, 
making such music as forces those who hear to 
be joyful or sad? Should the trumpet take credit 
to itself because through its tubes is blown the blast 
that sends an army headlong to the charge? 

After his first preaching in the valley of the 
Lana, hundreds of those who heard him had come 
to him making a profession of the Faith that he 
preached. He asked himself now if it was not pos- 
sible that he had been too eager to accept their 
assurance. He had had his experiences of the re- 
sult of the emotions of his listeners being so stirred 
by his preaching that they had come to him with 
the same glad story ; but only to become lukewarm 
after a space, and after another space to lapse into 
their former carelessness. The parable of the 
Sower was ever in his mind. The quick upspring- 
ing of the seed was a sign that it had fallen where 
there was no depth of earth. And this sowing was 
more hopeless than that on stony ground — than that 
among thorns. 

He feared that he had been too hasty. He was a 
careless husbandman who had been too ready to 
assume that a plentiful harvest was at hand, be- 
cause he had sown where there was no depth of 
earth. He should have waited and watched and 
noted every sign of spiritual growth before leaving 
the field of his labours. 

These were some of his self-reproaches which oc- 
cupied all his thoughts while making his return 
journey to Porthawn, thus causing all thought of 
Nelly Polwhele to be excluded from his mind. He 
had caught a glimpse of the Lana winding its way 
through the valley before he had a thought of her, 
and then it was with some bitterness that he re- 


104 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


fleeted that, all unknown to himself, he had short- 
ened his stay in this region because he had had an 
instinct that a danger would threaten him if he 
were to remain. Instinct? Now he was dealing 
with a force that was wholly animal — wholly of the 
flesh, and the flesh, he knew, was waging perpetual 
war with the things that appertained to the spirit. 

He urged his horse onward. Whatever danger 
might threaten himself by his returning to this 
region, he would not shrink from it; what was such 
a danger compared with that threatening the edifice 
of Faith which he had hoped had been built up in 
the midst of the simple people of the land? 

He urged his horse forward, and on the after- 
noon of the second day of his journey he was within 
a few hours’ journey of Ruthallion Mill. He 
meant to call at the Mill, feeling sure that he would 
get from the miller a faithful and intelligent ac- 
count of all that had happened during the three 
weeks of his absence from this neighbourhood. 
Miller Pendelly, once the champion of the old sys- 
tem of lifeless churchgoing, had become the zealous 
exponent of the new. He was the leader of the 
little band that formed the nucleus of the great or- 
ganisation of churchmen who, under the teaching 
of Wesley, sought to make the Church the power 
for good among the people that it was meant to be. 
Jake Pullsford, who had spread the story of Wes- 
ley’s aims among his friends before the preacher 
had appeared in Cornwall, had given evidence of 
the new Light that had dawned upon him when he 
had heard Wesley at Bristol. Both these were 
steadfast men, not likely to cause offence, and if 
Wesley had heard any report of their falling short 
of what was expected of them he would have been 
more than disappointed. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 105 


It was through Richard Pritchard, the profes- 
sional water-finder, that offence had come or was 
likely to come, Mr. Hartwell’s letter had told him. 
He remembered the man very clearly. He had had 
some conversation with him, and Jake had satisfied 
him as to the sincerity of his belief. He bail never 
been otherwise than a clean-living man, and he had 
studied many theological works. But he had not 
impressed Mr. Wesley as being a person of unusual 
intelligence. His remarkable calling and the suc- 
cess with which he practised it all through the 
West had caused him to appear in the eyes of the 
people of the country as one possessing certain 
powers which, though quite legitimate, being exer- 
cised for good, were bordering on the supernatural. 
Wesley now remembered that he had had some 
doubt as to the legitimacy of the man’s calling. Be- 
lieving, as he did, so fully in the powers of witch- 
craft, lie had a certain amount of uneasiness in ac- 
cepting as a member of the little community which 
he was founding, a man who used the divining rod ; 
but the simplicity of Pritchard and his exemplary 
character were in his favour, so much as to out- 
weigh the force of Wesley’s objection to his mode 
of life. 

Now, as he guided his horse down the valley road, 
he regretted bitterly that he had allowed his mis- 
givings to be overcome so easily. Like all men who 
have accomplished great things in the world, the 
difficulties which occasionally beset him were due 
to his accepting the judgment of others, putting 
aside his own feelings or tendencies, in certain mat- 
ters. The practice of the virtue of humility, in re- 
gard to his estimation of the value of his own judg- 
ment, had cost him dearly upon occasions. 

It was all the more vexatious to reflect that the 


106 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


man through whom the trouble (whatever it might 
be) was impending, was the last one in the world 
from whom any trouble might reasonably be looked 
for. This was probably the first time in his life 
that he had reached any prominence in the little 
circle in which he lived. To be allowed to remain 
in the background seemed to be his sole aspiration. 
His fear of giving offence to anyone seemed to be 
ever present with him, and his chief anxiety was to 
anticipate an imaginary offence by an apology. 
How a man who was so ludicrously invertebrate 
should become a menace to the stability of a com- 
munity that included such robust men as the miller, 
the carrier, and the smith, to say nothing of Farmer 
Tregenna and Mr. Hartwell, the mine owner, w r as 
more than Wesley could understand. It was this 
element of mystery that caused him to fear that 
Pritchard had all along been an agent of the Enemy 
— that his noted successes with the divining rod 
w^ere due to his connection with the Pow T ers of 
Darkness, and that his getting within the fold of 
the faithful w T as, after all, only what might have 
been expected from one w T hose tactics were devised 
for him by the Old Serpent — the origin of every 
evil since the expulsion from Paradise. 


CHAPTER X 


He spent an hour at the Old Waggoner Inn at 
the corner of the River Road, and while his horse 
was getting a feed in the stable he had some bread 
and cheese in the inn parlour — a large room built 
to accommodate the hungry coach passengers, who, 
accustomed to break their journey to or from Ply- 
mouth, were at this house. 

The room was not crowded when he arrived, but 
in the course of the next half-hour two additional 
parties entered, and while tankards were filled and 
emptied, and pewter platters of underdone beef 
laden with pickles were passed round, there was a 
good deal of loud talk, with laughter and an inter- 
change of friendly, if rude, humour. Wesley had 
had a sufficient experience of inn parlours to pre- 
vent his being greatly interested by the people here 
or their loud chat. 

This was only at first, however, for it soon be- 
came clear to him that the conversation and the 
jests were flowing in one channel. Then he be- 
came interested. 

“ Come hither, friend Thomas, and pay all 
scores,” cried one jovial young fellow to an 
elderly stout farmer who had been standing in 
the bar. 

“ Not me, lad,” cried the farmer. “ By the 
Lord Harry, you’ve the ‘ impidence ’ ! 

“ What, man, pay and look joyous. What will 
all your hoard of guineas be to you after Mon- 
day? ” cried the younger man. 

107 


108 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ ’Twill be worth twenty-one shillings for every 
guinea, if you must know,” replied the farmer. 

“ Nay, sir, you know well that there will be no 
use for your guineas at the Day of Judgment, 
which, as surely as Dick Pritchard is a prophet, 
will happen on Monday,” said the other. 

u I’m ready to run the chance, i’ the face o’ the 
Prophet Pritchard,” said the farmer. “ Ay, and to 
show what’s in me, I am ready ’twixt now and Sun- 
day to buy any property at a reasonable discount 
rate that any believer in Dick Pritchard may wish 
to sell.” 

u Good for you, farmer — good for you ! ” shouted 
a dozen voices, with the applause of rattling pewters 
on the table. 

“ Let Dick stick to his trade — water and not fire 
is his quality; he’d best leave the Day of Judgment 
in subtler hands,” growled a small, red-faced man, 
who was cooling himself this Summer day with 
Jamaica rum. 

There was some more laughter, but it was not of 
a hearty sort ; there was a forced gaiety in it that 
Wesley easily detected. 

“ By my troth, the fellow’s prophecy hath done a 
good turn to the maltster; there hath been more 
swilling, hot and cold, since he spoke a week ago 
yesterday, than in any month of ordinary calm 
weather, without a sniff of brimstone in it,” said 
Mr. Hone, the surgeon of the revenue men, who 
was in the act of facing a huge beef-steak with 
onions and a potato baked with a sauce of tansy. 

“ Small blame to the drouthy ones ; they know full 
well that by this day week they will be ready to pay 
Plymouth prices for a mugful o’ something cool- 
ing,” remarked a traveller. 

“ Gentlemen and friends, all, I make bold enough 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 109 


to affirm that this matter is too grave an one to be 
jested on or to be scoffed at,” said a tall, pale-faced 
young man. “I tell you', sirs, that there may be 
more in this thing than some of us suspect.” 

“ What, Mr. Tilley, are you feeble enough to be- 
lieve that an event of such considerable importance 
to the Government as the Day of Judgment would 
be announced through such an agent? This Dick 
Pritchard is a common man, as full of ignorance as 
a young widow is of tricks,” said the surgeon, look- 
ing up from his plate. 

“ Ignorant? ay, doubtless, Mr. Hone ; but how 
many ignorant men have yet won an honourable 
place in the book of the prophets, sir? ” asked the 
young man. “ Seems to any natural man, sir, that 
ignorance, as we call ignorance, was the main 
quality needful for an ancient old prophet that 
spake as he was moved.” 

“ That was in the Antique Dispensation, Mr. Til- 
ley; you must not forget that, sir,” cried the 
surgeon. 

“ Ay, that’s sure ; v? s a different age this that we 
live in,” said an acquiescent voice behind the 
shelter of a settle. 

“ I’d as lief credit a Christian as a Jew in such 
a matter : the Je^vs seem to have had this business 
of prophecy as exclusive in their hands as they have 
the trade of money now,” said the traveller. “ The 
Jewish seers busied themselves a good deal about 
the Day of Judgment, why should not a humble 
Christian be permitted a trifle of traffic on the 
same question, since it is one that should be of 
vital interest to all— especially innkeepers in hot 
weather? ” 

There was only a shred of laughter when he had 
spoken. It was clear that in spite of some of the 


110 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


jeers against the water-finder that had taken place 
in the room, there was a feeling that whatever he 
had taken it upon him to say — it seemed to Wesley 
that it had reference to the Day of Judgment on 
the next Monday — should not be treated with 
levity. The jocular tone of a few men who were 
present was distinctly forced. Upon several faces 
Wesley perceived an expression that reminded him 
of that upon the faces of some of the prisoners un- 
der sentence of death whom he had visited in his 
young days at Oxford. 

“ Say what you will, gentlemen,” resumed the 
young man called Tilley, “ this Dick Pritchard is 
no ordinary man. I have seen him at work with his 
wizard’s wand, and inside five minutes o’ the clock 
he had shown us where to bore for water in a 
meadow slope that was as deeply pitted before with 
borings as if it had an attack of smallpox. Ay, 
sirs, a hole had been dug here and another there — 
and there — and there — ” he indicated with his 
finger on the floor the locality of the diggings to 
which he referred — “but not a spoonful of water 
appeared. Then in comes our gentleman with a 
sliver of willow between his palms, and walks over 
the ground. I was nigh to him, and I affirm that 
I saw the twig twist itself like a snake between his 
fingers, jerking its tip, for all the world like the 
stumpy head of an adder, first in one direction, anon 
in another — I’ll swear that it turned, wicked as any 
snake, upon Dick himself at one time, so that he 
jerked his hands back and the thing fell on the 
grass, and if it did not give a kind of writhe there, 
my eyes played me false. But he picked it up again 
and walked slowly across the ground, not shun- 
ning in the least as an ordinary man would have 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 111 


done, if he had his wits about him, the parts that 
showed the former borings that had come to naught. 
’Twas in full boldness, just between two of the old 
holes, that he stopped short, and sajs he, * There’s 
your spring, and ’tis not six foot from the surface. 
I’ll wait to have a mugful, if I don’t make too bold,’ 
says he, ‘ for ’tis strangely drying work, this water- 
finding.’ And by my faith, sirs, the fellow had a 
pitcher of the softest spring water from that spot 
before an hour had gone and the rude scum of the 
field had been rinsed aw ay.” 

The silence that followed the man’s story w 7 as 
impressive. It seemed as if the cloud w 7 hich had 
been overhanging the company had become visible. 
No man so much as glanced at his neighbour, but 
every one of them stopped eating or drinking at 
that moment, and stared gloomily straight in front 
of him. Only one man, however, uttered a groan. 

“ Lord have mercy on us ! — the rocks and the 
mountains — the great and terrible day of the 
Lord ! ” he murmured. 

Then it was that a couple of men passed their 
hands over their foreheads. 

“ I w ould sooner see my cattle die of drouth than 
call in a water-finder,” said the farmer. “ I’ve oft- 
times said that he has a partner in his trade. In 
my young days a wmter-finder w 7 as burnt at the 
stake, for ’tw r as clearly proven that he w r as in league 
with the Fiend : after drinking o’ the w 7 ater that he 
drew 7 from the bow T els o’ th’ earth the husbandman’s 
son w T as seized wi’ a fit and dow T n he fell like a log 
and was only saved by the chance of the curate 
passing near the farm. Though but a young man, 
he saw 7 at once that the boy had been tampered 
with. ’Twas by good luck that he had with him 


112 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


a snuffbox made of the cedar wood of Lebanon at 
Jerusalem, where King Solomon built his temple, 
and ’tis well known that neither witch nor warlock 
can stand against such. Before you could say 
‘Worm,’ the young parson had made a circle o’ 
snuff around the poor victim, and with a deadly 
screech the fiend forsook the boy and ’twas said 
that it entered into a young heifer of promise, for 
she went tearing out of her byre that same night 
and was found all over a lather wandering on Dip- 
stone Sands in the morning. Ay, they burnt the 
water-finder at the next ’Sizes, the testimony being 
so clear as I say.” 

“ ’Tis time they burnt Dick Pritchard,” said 
someone else in a low voice. “ Though I’m not 
sure that ’tis in the Book that mere water-finding is 
heinous.” 

“ Maybe not, but sure a proof o’ the gift o’ 
prophecy is burnable in the New Dispensation,” 
suggested another. 

A big man sprang to his feet. His face was pale 
and his hands were nervous. He clapped his palms 
together. 

“ Every man in the room has a tankard with me,” 
he cried. “ I’ll pay the score for all. What use 
is the blunt to me after Monday? But now is our 
time, lads. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die!” 

The sentiment Avas greeted with a loud and harsh 
laugh by some men, but by a serious shake of the 
head by others. A young man started a ribald 
song. 

“ Shame, sir, shame, a parson’s present in the 
room,” cried an elderly man, who was seated near 
Wesley. 

The lilt was interrupted, and two or three fingers 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 113 


were pointed toward Wesley, who was half hidden 
from most of the people in the room. Now he 
stood up and faced them all. 

“ Hey, ’tis Wesley the preacher himself! ” cried 
the surgeon, and expressions of surprise were ut- 
tered in various directions. 

“ You have come in good time to superintend the 
winding up of the world, Mr. Wesley. Nay, don’t 
be over modest ; ’tis one of }mur own children hath 
said it,” said another. “ What, sir ; would you dis- 
own your own offspring? ” 

Wesley had held up his hand twice while the man 
was speaking. 

“ Friends, I am John Wesley,” he said. “ I have 
come sixty miles and better, having heard from 
Mr. Hartwell that I was needed in regard to this 
same Pritchard, but having been made acquainted 
with no points of detail. Sirs, since I entered this 
room I have, I believe, learned all that Mr. Hart- 
well forbore to tell me, and now I hasten to give 
you my assurance that I cannot countenance aught 
that this man Pritchard said. I deplore most 
heartily that he should be so far misled as to take 
upon him to utter a statement of prophecy touching 
the most awful event that our faith as believers 
takes a count of. Brethren, we are told that we 
know not the day nor the hour when that dread 
shall fall upon the world. That is the written 
Word of the Most High, and any man who, whether 
under the impulse of vanity or in the sincere belief 
that he possesses the gift of prophecy, is presump- 
tuous, is likely to become a stumbling block and a 
rock of offence. That is all that I have to say at 
this time. I have said so much in the hope that 
all who hear me will refrain from attributing to the 
influence of my preaching or teaching an act or a 


114 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


statement which I and my associates repudiate and 
condemn.” 

He inclined his head slowly, and then, picking up 
his hat, left the room. But before he reached the 
door every man in the room had risen respectfully, 
though no word was spoken by anyone present. 
Even after his departure there was a silence that 
lasted for several minutes. Everyone seemed to 
have drawn a long breath as of relief. 

“ Gentlemen, I think you may breathe freely 
once more: the world will last over Monday after 
all,” said the surgeon. 

“ Ay, the master has spoken and disowned his 
pupil,” said another. 

“ Maybe that’s because he feels chagrined that 
he lost the chance that Dick Pritchard grappled 
with,” suggested the pale youth. 

“ Boy,” said the traveller, with a contemptuous 
wave of the hand. “ Boy, Mr. Wesley is a man of 
learning and a man of parts, not a charlatan in a 
booth at a fair.” 

“ Or one with the duck’s instinct of seeking for 
water with a quack — ay, a quack with a quack,” 
said the surgeon. 

“ Well, if the world is not to expire on Monday, 
we would do well to drink her health, so hey for a 
gallon of old ale so far as it goes,” cried the man 
with the shaking head. 

The opinion seemed to be all but general that 
some sign of hilarity would not now be so much out 
of place as it seemed to be a quarter of an hour 
earlier, and the landlord was zealous in support of 
this view. He promised them a tipple worthy of 
the name, even if the world were to break up in a 
day or two! 

But long before the company were satisfied Wes- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 115 


ley was on his horse riding slowly down to Ruthal- 
lion Mill. He felt deeply pained by his experience 
in the inn parlour. So this was what Mr. Hart- 
well had hinted at in his letter — this assumption of 
the divine gift of the prophet by Pritchard. And 
the subject of his prophecy was one that every char- 
latan who had existed had made his own ! He him- 
self could remember more than one such prediction 
being made by men who were both ignorant and 
vain. One of them had afterwards stood in the 
pillory and another — the more sincere — had gone 
to a mad-house. It seemed to him strange that they 
should have had a following, but beyond a doubt 
their prediction had been widely credited, and the 
men themselves had achieved a notoriety which was 
to them the equivalent to fame. They had had 
their followers even after the date which they 
named in their prophecies had gone by without any 
disaster to the world. It seemed that the people 
were so glad at escaping that they had no room in 
their thoughts for any reproach for the false 
prophet. 

He knew, however, that in the case of Richard 
Pritchard the same leniency would not be shown. 
He knew that his own detractors — and they were 
many who regarded his innovations as a direct 
menace to the Church — would only be too glad of 
the chance which was now offered to them of ridi- 
culing him and his out-of-doors preaching, pointing 
out, as they most certainly would, that Richard 
Pritchard represented the first fruit of his preach- 
ing, and that his assumption of the authority of a 
prophet was the first fruit of his Methodism. 

But it was not only by reason of the possible in- 
jury that would be done to the movement which he 
had inaugurated in Cornwall that he was vexed. 


116 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


He had been greatly pained to observe the spirit 
in which the most awful incident on which the mind 
of man could dwell was referred to by the men in 
the inn parlour — men fairly representative of the 
people of the neighbourhood. The Day of Wrath 
had been alluded to with levity by some, in a spirit 
of ridicule by others; while one man had made it 
the subject of a wager, and another had made it an 
excuse for drunkenness ! 

He was grieved and shocked to reflect that it was 
Pritchard’s connection with his mission that had 
produced this state of things. He felt certain that 
if the man had remained outside the newly founded 
organisation, he would not have taken it upon him- 
self to speak as a prophet. 

But he felt that he could not lay the blame for 
what had occurred at the door of anyone whom he 
had appointed to help him in his work, and who had 
advanced the claims of Pritchard, for who could 
have foreseen that a man who seemed abnormally 
modest and retiring by nature should develop such 
a spirit? Beyond a doubt the man’s weak head had 
been turned. He had become possessed of a crav- 
ing after notoriety, and now that he had achieved 
it, he w r ould be a very difficult person to deal with. 
This Wesley perceived when he began to consider 
how to deal with the source of the affair. 

The most difficult point in this connection was 
his feeling that the man was quite sincere in his 
belief that upon him the spirit of prophecy had 
descended. He felt sure that the man was unaware 
of the existence of any motive in his own heart 
apart from the desire to utter a warning and a call 
to repentance to the people of the world, as Jonah 
the prophet had done to the people of Nineveh. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 117 


That fact, Wesley perceived, made it a matter of 
great difficulty both to silence Pritchard and to 
hold him up as a charlatan. 

He was indeed greatly perplexed in mind as he 
rode down the valley path leading to the Mill. 


CHAPTER XI 


Wesley could not, of course, know that Pritch- 
ard was at that time in the Mill awaiting his ar- 
rival. But it was the case that the water-finder, 
learning that the coming of Mr. Wesley was looked 
for during the afternoon, had gone to the Mill early 
and had rejected the suggestion made by the black- 
smith and Jake Pullsford, that he should not 
appear in the presence of Mr. Wesley until he was 
sent for. He was almost indignant at the hint con- 
veyed to him in an ambiguous way by Hal Holmes, 
that it would show better taste if he were to remain 
away for the time being. 

“ Take my word for’t, Dick, you’ll be brought 
face to face with him soon enow,” said Hal. “ You’ll 
be wishful that you had ne’er been born or thought 
of. Mr. Wesley is meek, but he isn’t weak, and ’tis 
the meek ones that’s the hardest to answer when the 
time comes, and it always comes too soon. Before 
your Monday comes you’ll be wishful to hide away 
and calling on the mountains to cover ye.” 

“ List to me, Hal ; there’s naught that will say 
nay to me when my mind is made up, and go to face 
Mr. Wesley I shall,” Dick had replied. 

The blacksmith folded his big bare arms and 
looked at him with curiosity from head to foot. 

“ A change has come o’er a good many of us since 
Mr. Wesley began to preach, but what’s all our 
changes alongside yours, Dick Pritchard? ” he said, 
shaking his head as though he relinquished this 
task of solving the problem which had been sug- 
118 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 119 


gested to him. “ Why, you was used to fear and 
tremble at the thin noise of your own voice, Dick 
Pritchard. With these ears I have heard you make 
an apology for saying ‘ Thank ye,’ on the score that 
you were too bold. But now you are for rushing 
headlong to meet the man that you scarce dare lift 
your hat to a month or two agone.” 

“ I hadn’t learned then all that there’s in me 
now, Hal,” replied the water-finder. “ I always did 
despise myself, being unmindful that to despise my- 
self was to do despite to Heaven. Doesn’t it stand 
to reason, Hal, that the greater a man thinks him- 
self, the greater is the honour he does to his Maker? 
I think twice as much of God since I came to see 
what a man He made in me.” 

“ That’s a square apology for conceit, Dick, and 
I don’t think aught the better of you for putting 
it forward at this time and in such a case as this. 
What, good fellow, would you be at the pains to 
magnify a man’s righteousness pace for pace with 
his conceit? At that rate, the greater the coxcomb 
the more righteous the man.” 

Dick was apparently lost in thought for some 
time. At last he shook his head gravely, saying : 

“ Not for all cases, Hal, not for all cases. You 
be a narrow-souled caviller, I doubt; you cannot 
comprehend an argyment that’s like a crystal dia- 
mond, with as many sides to it as a middling igno- 
rant man would fail to compute.” 

“ That may be, but I’ve handled many a lump of 
sea-coal that has shown as many sides as any 
diamond that was ever dug out of the earth, and it 
seems to me that your talk is more like the sea-coal 
than the crystal, Dick, my friend,” said the black- 
smith. “ Ay, your many-sided argyments are only 
fit to be thrust into the furnace, for all their sides.” 


120 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Mr. Wesley will comprehend,” said Pritchard 
doggedly; “ though even Mr. Wesley might learn 
something from me. Ay, and in after years you 
will all be glad to remember that you once dwelt 
nigh a simple man by name Richard Pritchard.” 

“ In after years? ” cried Hal Holmes. “ Why, 
where are your after years to come from, if the end 
of all things is to be on us on Monday?” 

“ Don’t you doubt but that ’twill come to an end 
on Monday,” said the water-finder, “ however you 
may twist and turn. Be sure that you be prepared, 
Hal Holmes. You have been a vain-living black- 
smith, I am feared, and now you side with them 
that would persecute the prophets. Prepare your- 
self, Hal, prepare yourself.” 

This was the style in which the man had been 
talking for some time, astonishing everyone who 
had known his extreme modesty in the past; and 
this was the strain in which he talked when he had 
entered the Mill, and found the miller, JaLe Pulls- 
ford and Mr. Hartwell seated together awaiting the 
arrival of Wesley. 

The man’s entrance at this time surprised them. 
They knew he was aware that Mr. Wesley was re- 
turning in haste, owing solely to his, Pritchard’s, 
having put himself forward in a way that his 
brethren could not sanction, and it never occurred 
to them that he would wish to meet Mr. Wesley at 
this time. They were, as was Hal Holmes, under 
the impression that when Wesley arrived Pritch- 
ard’s former character might show itself once more, 
causing him to avoid even the possibility of meet- 
ing the preacher face to face. 

They were soon undeceived. The water-finder 
was in no way nervous when he came among 
them. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 121 


When he had in some measure recovered from 
his surprise, the miller said : 

“ We looked not for thy coming so soon, Dick, 
but maybe ’tis as well that thou’rt here.” 

“ How could I be away from here unless I had 
hastened to meet Mr. Wesley on his way hither?” 
said Pritchard. “ I have been trembling with de- 
sire to have his ear for the past week. It is laid on 
me to exhort him on some matters that he neglected. 
These matters can be neglected no longer.” 

The miller looked at Jake Pullsford, and the lat- 
ter sat aghast. He was so astounded that he could 
only stare at Pritchard, with his hands on his knees 
and his head in its usual poise, craning forward. 
Some moments had passed before he succeeded in 
gasping out, after one or two false starts: 

“ You — you — you — Dick Pritchard — you talk of 
exhorting Mr. Wesley? Oh, poor fellow! poor 
fellow! Now, indeed, we know that you are 
mad ! ” 

“ Mr. Wesley should ha’ found out the gift that 
is mine,” said Pritchard, quite ignoring the some- 
what frank utterance of the carrier. “ I suspected 
myself during several months of having that great 
gift of prophecy. ? Twas no more than a suspicion 
for some time, and I dare not speak before I was 
sure.” 

“And what made thee sure, Dick?” asked the 
miller. 

“ ’Twas reading how the great prophet, Moses, 
made water flow from the rock,” replied Pritchard. 
“ ‘ What/ said I to my own self. 6 What, Richard 
Pritchard, hath not all thy life been spent in per- 
forming that great miracle of Moses, and hast not 
known the greatness of thy gift?’ And then I 
made search and found that water-finding has been 


122 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


the employment of most of the great prophets, Eli- 
jah being the foremost. Like to a flash from a far- 
off cannon gun, that reaches the eyes before ever the 
sound of the boom comes upon the ear, the truth 
was revealed to me. I knew then that the gift of 
the Tishbite was mine.” 

It was Jake Pullsford who now looked at the 
miller. The miller shook his head. 

“ ’Twould not matter much what you thought of 
yourself, Dick,” said the miller, “ if only you had 
not been admitted to our fellowship; but things be- 
ing as they be ” 

He shook his head again. 

“ What overcomes me is the thought of thy former 
habit of life, Dick,” said the carrier. “ Why, up to 
a month agone, a man more modest, shy and tame 
speaking, wasn’t to be found in all the West Coun- 
try. Why, man, I’ve seen thee sweat at the sound 
of thine own voice, like as if thou hadst been a thief 
a-hearing o’ the step of an officer! Meek! Meek is 
no name for it! I give thee my word that it oft 
made me think shame of all manhood in the world 
to hear thee make apology for a plain truth that, 
after all, thou wast too bashful to utter ! ” 

“You could not see my heart, Miller,” said 
Pritchard. “’Twas only that I was humble in 
voice; I know now that in spirit I was puffed up 
with pride, so that I could hardly contain myself. 
But even after the truth came upon me in that flash, 
I was ready to treat the likes of you, Miller — ay, 
even the likes of thee, Jake Pullsford, as mine 
equal, so affable a heart had I by birth.” 

“ You promoted yourself a bit, Dick,” remarked 
the miller. “ But I’ve always observed that when 
a man tells another in that affable way that he re- 
gards the other as his equal, he fancies in the in- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 123 

wardness of his heart that he is far above the one 
he gives such an assurance to.” 

“I feel a sort of light of knowledge within me 
ready to break forth and tell me a wonderful reply 
to that remark of yours, Miller,” said Pritchard. 
“ Tarry a while, and give me time for the light to 
break forth with fulness, and you’ll be rewarded; 
friends, you will hear a reply that will make you 
all stand back in amaze, and marvel, as I have done, 
how noble a thing is the gift of speech — saying a 
phrase or two that makes the flesh of man tingle. 
All I ask is time. It may not come to me within 
the hour, but ” 

“ Here’s one that hath come to thee, my man, 
and he will listen to all you have to say: I hear the 
sound of his horse on the lane,” cried the miller. 

Jake Pullsford sprang from the settle, and 
strained himself to look out of the window. 

“ Right; ’tis Mr. Wesley, in very deed,” he said. 

“ That’s as should be,” cried Pritchard, with an 
air of satisfaction that made the others feel the 
more astonished. 

And when Wesley had entered and greeted his 
friends, including the water-finder, they were a 
good deal more astonished at the attitude taken by 
Pritchard. Without wasting time over prelimina- 
ries, he assumed that Wesley had come to the Mill 
in order not to admonish him, but to be admonished 
by him. Before Mr. Wesley had time to say more 
than a word, Pritchard had become fluent on the 
subject of the preacher’s responsibilities. It was 
not for Mr. Wesley to go wandering in the utter- 
most parts of Cornwall, he said; he should have 
remained at Porthawn to consolidate the work that 
he had begun ; had he done so until he had gathered 
in every soul, the Lord might have been as merciful 


124 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


to the world as He had been to Nineveh in the days 
of Jonah. But Mr. Wesley had, like Jonah, fled 
from his duty, and the next Monday was to be the 
Day of Judgment, 

Wesley listened gravely until the man got upon 
his feet and with an outstretched finger toward him, 
cried : 

“ I have been mocked by some, and held in silent 
despite by others — all of them professing to be of 
the Household of Faith, because the Spirit of 
prophecy came upon me, and I announced the truth. 
Nor, Mr. Wesley, will you dare to join with the 
disbelievers and say straight out that the first Mon- 
day will not be the Last Day that will dawn on this 
world? ” 

“ No,” said Wesley, “ I would not be so pre- 
sumptuous as to lay claim to any knowledge that 
would entitle me to speak on a subject of such aw- 
ful import. € Ye know not the day nor the hour / — 
those were the words of our Lord, and anyone who 
makes profession of knowing either, commits a 
grievous sin.” 

“ Ay, anyone but me,” said Pritchard. “ But the 
revelation was made to me — I take no glory to 
myself. The great and terrible Day of the Lord 
cometh next Monday, and they shall cry unto the 
rocks to fall on them and the mountains to cover 
them. What other place could that refer to if not 
Ruthallion and Porthawn ; is’t not that Ruthallion 
is in the heart of the hills and Porthawn the place 
of rocks? ” 

With all gentleness Wesley spoke to the man of 
the great need there was for caution on the part of 
anyone venturing to assign times and seasons to 
such prophecies as had been uttered respecting the 
mystery of the Last Judgment. He tried to show 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 125 


him that however strong his own conviction was on 
the subject of the Revelation, he should hold his 
peace, for fear of a mistake being made and enemies 
being afforded a reason for railing against the cause 
which they all had at heart. The interpretation of 
prophecy, he said, was at all times difficult and 
should certainly not be lightly attempted even by 
those men who had spent all their lives dealing with 
the subject, with the light of history to guide them. 
Nothing could exceed the tact, patience and gentle- 
ness with which the pastor pleaded with this erring 
one of his flock — the miller and Jake Pullsford were 
amazed at his forbearance; they learned a lesson 
from him which they never forgot. He was pa- 
tient and said no word of offence all the time that 
they were waxing irritable at the foolishness of the 
man who sat shaking his head now and again, and 
pursing out his lips after the manner of pig-headed 
ignorance when objecting to the wisdom of experi- 
ence. 

It was all to no purpose that Wesley spoke. The 
man listened, but criticised with the smile of in- 
credulous superiority on his face almost all the 
time that Wesley was speaking — it varied only 
when he was shaking his head, and then throwing 
it back defiantly. It was all to no purpose. 

“ You are right, Mr. Wesley, in some ways,” he 
cried. “But you talk of the interpretation of 
prophecy. Well, that is within your sphere, and I 
durstn’t stop you so far. Ay, but I am not an in- 
terpreter of prophecy — I am the very prophet him- 
self. Friends, said not I the truth to you this hour 
past — how I felt as it were a burst of flame within 
me, whereby I knew that I had been possessed of 
the spirit of prophecy? The gift of water-finding, 
which has been mine since my youth, was only be- 


126 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


stowed upon the major prophets, Moses being the 
chief; and when I read of Elijah, who in the days 
of the grievous water famine was enabled by the 
exercise of his gift, and guided by the hand of the 
Lord, to find water — even the running brook 
Chereth — in the midst of a land that was dusty dry, 
all unworthy doubt was set at rest. Is it not writ- 
ten that Elijah, the prophet, was to come back to 
earth to warn the people of the Great Day being at 
hand? ” 

“ Dear friend, stay thy tongue for a moment — 
say not words that might not be forgiven thee even 
by the Most Merciful,” cried Wesley. 

“ You are a great preacher and a faithful servant 
— up to a certain point, Mr. Wesley; but you are 
not as I am,” replied Pritchard firmly, but not with- 
out a tone of tenderness. “ You are a preacher; I 
am the prophet. I have spoken as Jonah spoke to 
the men of Nineveh : i Yet forty days and Nineveh 
shall be overthrown.’ ‘ In eleven days the w orld 
shall be overthrown,’ said I, feeling the flame 
within me.” 

“ The people of Nineveh repented and the destruc- 
tion was averted,” said Wesley. “ Have there been 
signs of a great repentance among the people who 
got tidings of your prediction?” 

“ My prophecy has everywhere been received with 
ridicule,” replied the man proudly. 

“ I can testify to that,” said Jake Pullsford. “ I 
travel about, as you know, and I hear much of what 
is talked over from here to Devon, and only for a 
few light-headed women — ready to believe that the 
moon was the sun if they were told so from the 
pulpit — only for these, it might be said that Dick’s 
foolishness w r ould ha’ fallen on ears as deaf as an 
adder’s.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 127 


“ I, myself, can bear witness to the evil effect that 
has been produced among a people who were, I 
hoped, ready for the sowing of the good seed,” said 
Wesley. “ It was a great sorrow to me to hear the 
lightness of talk — the offer of wagers — the excuse 
of drunkenness — all the result of Richard Pritch- 
ard’s indiscretion.” 

“ And everywhither it has been received as com- 
ing from us — from us whom you have instructed in 
the Truth, sir,” said Jake. “ ’Tis not Dick Pritch- 
ard that has been ridiculed, but we whom they call 
Methodists. That is the worst of it.” 

“ And now that I have paved the way for you, the 
preacher, Mr. Wesley, you will be able for three 
days to exhort the people to repentance,” said 
Pritchard, with the air of a man accustomed to give 
advice on grave matters, with confidence that his 
advice would be followed. 

“ My duty is clear,” said Wesley. “ I shall have 
to disclaim all sympathy with the statements made 
by Richard Pritchard. Souls are not to be terror- 
ised to seek salvation. I am not one of those min- 
isters who think that the painting of lurid pictures 
of the destruction of the earth and all that is therein 
the best way of helping poor sinners. Nay, there 
have come under mine own eyes many instances of 
the very temporary nature of conversions brought 
about by that paradox of the gospel of terror. 
But need we look for guidance any further away 
than the history of Jonah and the Ninevites? The 
prophet preached destruction, and the people re- 
pented. But how long did the change last? The 
fire and brimstone had to be rained down upon 
them before the sackcloth that they assumed was 
worn out.” 

“ On Monday the fire and brimstone will over- 


128 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


whelm the whole world, and woe be to him that 
preacheth not from that text till then ! ” cried 
Pritchard. He was standing at one end of the table 
facing the window that had a western aspect, and 
as he spoke, the flaming beams of the sinking sun 
streamed through the glass and along the table un- 
til they seemed to envelop him. In spite of the 
smallness of his stature he seemed, with the sun- 
beams striking him, to possess some heroic ele- 
ments. The hand that he uplifted was thin and 
white, and it trembled in the light. His face was 
illuminated, not from without only ; his eyes were 
large and deep, and they seemed staring at some 
object just outside the window. 

Watching him thus, everyone in the room turned 
toward the window — Wesley was the only excep- 
tion; he kept his eyes fixed upon the man at the 
foot of the table. He saw his eyes move as if they 
were following the movements of someone outside, 
and their expression varied strangely. But they 
were the eyes of a man who is the slave of his nerves 
— of a visionary who is carrid away by his own ill- 
balanced imagination — of the mystic who can see 
what he wishes to see. 

Wesley was perplexed watching this man whose 
nature seemed to have completely changed wdthin 
the month. He had had a good deal of strange ex- 
perience of nervous phases, both in men and women 
who had been overcome by his preaching, but he had 
never before met with a case that was so strange 
as this. The man was no impostor; an impostor 
would have been easy to deal with. He was a firm 
believer in his own mission and in his own powers, 
and therein lay the difficulty of suppressing him. 

And while Wesley watched him, and everyone 
else seemed striving to catch a glimpse of the object 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 129 


on which the man’s eyes were fixed, the light sud- 
denly passed out of his eyes and they became like 
those of a newly dead man, staring blankly at that 
vision which comes before the sight of a soul that 
is in the act of passing from the earth into the great 
unknown Space. There he stood with his hand 
still upraised, and that look of nothingness in his 
staring eyes. 

Wesley sprang up from the table to support him 
when he fell, and he appeared to be tottering after 
the manner of a man who has been shot through the 
heart while on his feet; and Wesley’s movement 
caused the others to turn toward the man. 

In a second the miller was behind him with out- 
stretched arms ready to support him. Pritchard 
did not fall just then, however. Breathlessly and 
in a strained silence, the others watched him while 
he swayed to the extent of a hand’s breadth from 
side to side, still with his hand upraised and rigid. 
For some minutes — it might have been five — he 
stood thus, and in the end he did not collapse. He 
went slowly and rigidly backward into Wesley’s 
arms, and then down into his own chair, his eyes 
still open — still blankly staring, devoid of all 
expression. 

“ Dead — can he be dead?” whispered Jake, slip- 
ping a hand under his waisteoat. 

Wesley shook his head. 

“ He is not dead, but in a trance,” he replied. 


CHAPTER XII 


For half an hour the four men in that room sat 
watching with painful interest the one who sat 
motionless in the chair at the end of the table. 
There was not one of them that had not a feeling 
of being a watcher by the side of a bed on which a 
dead body was lying. Not a word was exchanged 
between them. In the room there was a complete 
silence — the silence of a death chamber. The 
sound of the machinery of the mill — the creaking 
of the wooden wheels, and the rumbling of the 
grindstones — went on in dull monotony in the mill, 
and from the kitchen, beyond the oaken door, there 
came the occasional clink of a pan or kettle; and 
outside the building there was the clank of the 
horses of a waggon, and the loud voices of the 
waggoners talking to the men in one of the lofts, 
and now and again directing the teams. A cock 
was crowing drowsily at intervals in the poultry 
run, and once there was a quacking squabble 
amongst the ducks on the Mill race. And then, 
with the lowing of the cows that were being driven 
to the milking shed, came the laughter of a girl, 
passing the waggoners. 

But in the room there was silence, and soon the 
dimness of twilight. 

And then John Wesley prayed in a low voice. 

Enough light remained in the room to allow those 
watchers to see when consciousness returned to the 
man’s eyes : he was facing the window. But before 
the expression of death changed to that of life, his 

130 


THE LOVE THAT PEEVAILED 131 


arm, that was still stiffly outstretched, and seeming 
all the more awkward since he had ceased to be on 
his feet, fell with a startling thud upon the edge of 
the table. It was as if a dead man had made a 
movement. Then his eyes turned upon each in the 
room in turn. He drew a long breath. 

“ You are among friends, Dick ; how feel you, my 
man?” said Jake Pullsford, laying his hand upon 
Pritchard’s that had fallen upon the table. 

“ I saw it again — clear — quite clear, Jake,” said 
Pritchard. 

“What saw ye, friend Dick?” asked Jake. 

“ The vision — the Vision of Patmos. The 
heavens rolled together like a scroll — blackness at 
first — no mind o’ man ever conceived of such black- 
ness — the plague of Egypt was snow-white to com- 
pare. And then ’twas all flame — flame — flame. 
The smith’s furnace hath but a single red eye of 
fire, but its sharp brightness stings like a wasp. 
But this — oh, millions upon millions of furnace 
eyes, and every eye accusing the world beneath. Who 
can live with everlasting burning? — that was what 
the Voice cried — I know not if it was the strong 
angel, or him that rode upon the White Horse, but 
I heard it, and all the world heard it, and the most 
dreadful and most unusuallest thing of all was the 
sight of that White Horse, plunging and pawing 
with all the fiery flames around it and above and 
below! And the Voice said, ‘There shall be no 
more sea,’ and forthwith all the tide that had been 
flowing in hillocks into Porthawn and teasing the 
pebbles where the shallows be, and lapping the 
Dog’s Teeth reef, wimpling around the spikes — all 
that tide of water, I say, began to move out so that 
every eye could see it move, and the spikes o’ the 
reef began to grow as the water fell, till the bases of 


132 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


tlie rocks appeared with monstrous weeds, thick as 
coiled snakes, and crawling shells, monstrous 
mighty that a man might live in; and then I saw 
the slime of the deep, thick as pitch and boiling 
and bubbling with the heat below, even as pitch 
boils over the brazier when the boats lie bottom up 
on the beach. And then I saw a mighty ship lying 
in the ooze — a ship that had become a wreck, may- 
be a hundred years agone, half the timbers rotted 
from the bends so that she was like some monster 
o’ the deep with its long ridges of ribs showing flesh- 
less as a skeleton. And then the Voice cried, 4 The 
Sea gave up its Dead.’ . . . You shall see it for 
yourselves on Monday — ay, all that came before 
mine eyes. ? Twas Mr. Wesley preached on the great 
moving among the dry bones — they were dry in that 
valley, but in the dread secret depths where the 
sea had been these were damp with the slime of 
ages, and they crawled together, bone unto bone, 
throwing off the bright green seaweeds that over- 
laid them like shrouds of thin silk. They stood up 
together all in the flesh, and I noted that their skin 
was the yellow pale skin of the drowned, like the 
cheeks of a female who holds a candle in her hands 
and shades the flame with one of her palms. Flame 
— I saw them all by the light of the flaming sky, 
and some of them put up their saffron hands be- 
tween their faces and the flame, but the light shone 
through their flesh as you have seen the sun shine 
through a sere leaf of chestnut in the autumn,” 

He stopped suddenly and drew a long breath. 
For some moments he breathed heavily. No one in 
the room spoke. A boy went past the door outside 
whistling. 

When the man spoke again it was in a whisper. 
He turned to Wesley. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 133 


“ Mr. Wesley, I knew not that I had the gift 
until I heard you preach,” he said. “ I only sus- 
pected now and again when I felt the twitchings 
of the twig between my hands when I was finding 
the water, that I was not as other men; but when 
I heard you preach and saw how you carried all who 
listened away upon your words as though they 
were not words, but a wave of the sea, and the nat- 
ural people the flotsam of the waste, I felt my 
heart swell within me by reason of the knowledge 
that I had been chosen to proclaim something great 
beyond even all that you could teach. And now ’tis 
left for you to stand by my side and tell all that 
have ears to hear to prepare for the Great Day. 
It is coming — Monday. I would that we had a 
longer space, Sir, for, were it so, my name would 
go forth through all the world as yours has done — 
nay, with more honour, for a prophet is ahead of 
the mere preacher. But you will do your best for 
the world in the time allowed to us, will you not, 
Mr. Wesley? ” 

He laid his hand on one of Wesley’s, firmly and 
kindly. 

“ My poor brother! ” said Wesley gently. “ God 
forgive me if I have been the means of causing hurt 
to even the weakest of my brethren. Let us live, 
dear brother, as if our days in the world were not 
to be longer than this week, giving our thoughts 
not to ourselves, but to God; seeking for no glory 
to attach to our poor names, but only to the Name 
at which every knee must bow. Humility — let us 
strive after humility. What are we but dust? ” 

The man looked at him — there was still some 
light in the room — and after the lapse of a few 
moments he said : 

“ You have spoke a great truth, Mr. Wesley. 


134 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


Humility is for all of us. Pray that I may attain 
it, brother. It should come easy enough to some 
that we know, but for such as you and me, espe- 
cially me, dear brother, ’tis not so easy. The gift of 
prophecy surely raises a humble man into circum- 
stances so lofty that he is above the need for any 
abject demeanour. Ay, now that I reflect on’t, I 
am not sure that I have any right to be humble. 
’Twould be like flouting a gift in the face of the 
giver. ’Twould be like a servant wearing a ragged 
coat when his master hath provided him with a fine 
suit of livery.” 

He had risen from his place, and now he re- 
marked that the evening had come and he had far 
to travel. He gave Wesley his hand, nodded to the 
others and went through the door without another 
word. 

The men whom he left in the room drew long 
breaths. One of them — the farmer — made a sound 
with his tongue against his teeth as one might do 
when a child too young to know better breaks a 
saucer. The miller gave an exclamation that went 
still further, showing more of contempt and less 
of pity. Mr. Hartwell, the mine-owner, who was 
a quiet, well-read man, said: 

“ I have heard of cases like to his ; I have been 
reading of revivals, as some call such an awaken- 
ing as has taken place through Mr. Wesley’s preach- 
ing, and every one of them has been followed by the 
appearance of men not unlike Dick Pritchard in 
temper — men who lose themselves in their zeal — 
get out of their depth — become seized by an ambi- 
tion to teach others before they themselves have got 
through the primer.” 

“For me, I call to mind naught but the magic 
men of Egypt,” said Jake Pullsford. “They were 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 135 


able to do by their traffic with the Evil One all that 
Moses did by miracle. I always had my doubts 
about the power that Dick Pritchard professed — 
finding water by the help of his wand of hazel — as 
’twere a wizard’s wand — maybe the staves of the 
Egyptian sorcerers were of hazel — I shouldn’t 
wonder. And now he falls into a trance and says 
he sees a vision, equalling himself to St. John at 
Patmos! For myself I say that I never knew of 
a truly godly man falling into a trance. My grand- 
father — you are old enough to remember him, 
farmer? ” 

“ I mind him well — pretty stiff at a bargain up 
to the end,” said the farmer with a side nod of 
acquiescence. 

“ We be talking of the same man,” resumed the 
miller. “ Well, I say that he told me of one such 
mystical vision seer that came from Dorset in his 
young days, and he saw so many things that he was 
at last tried for sorcery and burnt in the market- 
place. Ah, those were the days when men wasn’t 
allowed by law to go so far as they do now-a-days. 
Why, ’tis only rarely that we hear of a witch burn- 
ing in these times.” 

Wesley held up his hand. 

“ I had my misgivings in regard to Pritchard 
from the first,” he said. “And when I got news 
that he had been causing you trouble I felt that he 
had indeed been an agent of the Evil One. But 
now — God forbid that I should judge him in haste. 
I scarce know what to think about him. I have 
heard of holy men falling into trances and after- 
wards saying things that were profitable to hear. 
I am in doubt. I must pray for guidance.” 

“ The man is to be pitied,” said Mr. Hartwell. 
“ You heard the uplifted way he talked at the last 


136 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


— like a fool full of his own conceit? Have you 
heard yet, Mr. Wesley, what an effect his predic- 
tion has had upon the country? ” 

“ I heard naught of it until I had entered the 
parlour at the inn where I dined to-day, but I 
think I heard enough to allow of my forming some 
notion of the w r ay his prediction was received. 
Some were jocular over it, a few grave, and a large 
number ribald.” 

“ You have described what I myself have noticed, 
sir,” said Mr. Hartwell. “ Only so far as I can 
see there are a large number who are w T ell-nigh 
mad through fear. Now w 7 hat we may be sure of 
is that these people, when Monday passes, will turn 
out open scoffers at the truth. And you may be 
certain that your opponents will only be too glad 
of the opportunity thereby afforded them of dis- 
crediting your labours; they will do their best to 
make Methodism responsible for the foolishness 
and vanity of that man? ” 

“ I perceived that that would be so the moment 
I got your letter,” said Wesley. “ And yet — I tell 
you, brethren, that I should be slow r to attribute 
any imposture to this man, especially since I have 
heard him speak in this room. He believes that he 
has been endowed by Heaven with the gift of 
prophecy.” 

“And he only acknowledges it to boast,” said 
Mr. Hartwell. “ It is his foolish boasting that I 
abhor most, knowing, as I do full well, that every 
word that comes from him will be used against us, 
and tend to cast discredit upon the cause which 
we have at heart.” 

Wesley perceived how true was this view of the 
matter, but still he remained uncertain what course 
to adopt in the circumstances. He knew that it 


'THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 137 

was the fervour of his preaching that had affected 
Pritchard, as it had others; he had heard reports 
of the spread of a religious mania at Bristol after 
he had preached there for some time; but he had 
always succeeded in tracing such reports to those 
persons who had ridiculed his services. This was 
the first time that he was brought face to face with 
one who had been carried away by his zeal to a 
point of what most people would be disposed to 
term madness. 

He had known that there would be considerable 
difficulty dealing with the case of Pritchard, but 
he had also believed that the man would become 
submissive if remonstrated with. It had hap- 
pened, however, that, so far from becoming sub- 
missive, Pritchard had reasserted himself, and with 
so much effect that Wesley found himself sym- 
pathising with him — pitying him, and taking his 
part in the face of the others who were apparently 
but little affected by the impassioned account the 
man had given of his vision when in the trance. 

It was not until the night had fallen that they 
agreed with Wesley that it might be well to wait 
for a day or two in order that he should become 
acquainted with some of the effects of the predic- 
tion, and thus be in a position to judge whether 
or not he should take steps to dissociate himself 
and his mission from the preaching of the man 
Pritchard. 

He had not, however, gone further than Port- 
hawn the next day before he found out that the 
impression produced by the definite announcement 
that the Day of Judgment was but forty-eight 
hours off was very much deeper than he had fan- 
cied. He found the whole neighbourhood seething 
with excitement over the prophecy. It had been 


138 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


made by Pritchard, he learned, in the course of 
a service which had been held in a field on the first 
Sunday after Wesley’s departure, and it had been 
\ heard by more than a thousand of the people whom 
* Wesley’s preaching had aroused from lethargy to 
a living sense of responsibility. Religious fervour 
had taken hold upon the inhabitants of valley and 
coast, and under its influence extravagance and 
exuberance were rife. Only at such a time would 
Pritchard’s new-found fervour have produced any 
lasting impression, but in the circumstances his 
assumption of the mantle of the prophet and his 
delivery of the solemn warning had had among the 
people the effect of a firebrand flung among straw. 
He had shouted his words of fire to an inflammable 
audience, and his picture of the imminent terror 
had overwhelmed them. The shrieks of a few hys- 
terical women completed what his prediction had 
begun, and before the evening the valley of the 
Lana was seething with the news that the world 
was coming to an end within the month. 

All this Wesley heard before he left the Mill, 
and before he had ridden as far as the coast village 
he had ample confirmation of the accuracy of the 
judgment of his friends, who had assured him that 
the cause which they had at heart was likely to 
suffer through the vanity of Pritchard. He also 
perceived that the man had good reason for being 
puffed up on observing the effect of his deliverance. 
In a moment he had leaped into notoriety from 
being a nonentity. It seemed as if he had been 
ashamed of hearing his own voice a short time 
before, and this fact only made him appear a 
greater marvel to himself as well as to the people 
who had heard him assume the character of a 
prophet of fire and brimstone. It was no wonder, 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 139 

Wesley acknowledged, that the man’s head had 
been turned. 

The worst of the matter was that he was referred 
to by nearly all the countryside as Wesley’s deputy. 
Even the most devoted of Wesley’s hearers seemed 
to have accepted Pritchard as the exponent of the 
methods adopted by Wesley to get the ears of the 
multitude. In their condition of blind fervour 
they were unable to differentiate between the zeal 
of the one to convey to them the living Truth and 
the excess of the other. They were in the condi- 
tion of the French mob, who, fifty years later, after 
being stirred by an orator, might have gone to 
think over their wrongs for another century had 
not a madman lighted a torch and pointed to the 
Bastille. 

It was only to be expected that the opponents of 
the great awakening begun by Wesley should point 
to the extravagance of Pritchard and call it the 
natural development of Methodism. Wesley’s cru- 
sade had been against the supineness of the Church 
of England, they said ; but how much more prefera- 
ble was this supineness to the blasphemy of Meth- 
odism as interpreted by the charlatan who arro- 
gated to himself the power of a prophet! 

He was pained as he had rarely been since his 
American accusers had forced him to leave Georgia, 
when he found what a hold the prediction had got 
on the people. He had evidence of the extent of 
Pritchard’s following even during his ride to Port- 
hawn. At the cross roads, not two miles from the 
Mill, he came upon a large crowd being preached 
to by a man whom he had never seen before, and the 
text was the Judgment Day. The preacher was 
fervid and illiterate. He became frantic, touching 
upon the terror that was to come on Monday; and 


i40 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


his hearers were shrieking — men as well as women. 
Some lay along the ground sobbing wildly, others 
sang a verse of a hymn in frenzy. 

Further along the road a woman was preaching 
repentance — in another two days it would be too 
late; and in the next ditch a young woman was 
making a mock of her, putting a ribald construc- 
tion upon what she was saying. Further on still 
he came to a tavern, outside which there was a large 
placard announcing that the world would only last 
till Monday, and having unfortunately a large stock 
of beer and rum in fine condition, the innkeeper was 
selling off the stock at a huge reduction in the price 
of every glass of liquor. 

Wesley had no difficulty in perceiving the man’s 
generosity was being appreciated. The bar was 
crowded with uproarious men and women, and 
some were lying helpless on the stones of the yard. 

On the wall of a disused smithy a mile or 
two nearer the coast there was chalked up the 
inscription : 

“ The Methodys have bro 1 about the Ende of the 
World. Who will bring about the Ende of the 
Methodys? Downe with them all, I saye.” 

He rode sadly onward, with bowed head. He 
felt humiliated, feeling that the object for which 
he lived was humiliated. 

And the worst of the matter was, he saw, that 
these people who were making a mock of the Truth, 
some consciously, others unconsciously, were not in 
a condition to lend an ear to any remonstrance that 
might come from him. The attitude assumed by 
Pritchard was, Wesley knew, typical of that which 
would be taken up by his followers, and the mockers 
would only be afforded a new subject for ridicule. 

“ Is it I — is it I who am an unprofitable serv- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 141 


ant? ” he cried out of the depth of his despondency. 
“ Is it I that have been the cause of the enemy’s 
blasphemy? What have I done that I should be 
made a witness of this wreckage of all that I hoped 
to see accomplished through my work?” 

For some time he felt as did the man who cried 
“ It is enough ! I am not better than my fellows.” 

He let his rein drop on his horse’s neck when 
approaching the house where he was to be a guest. 
The day was one of grey mists rolling from the sea 
through the valley, spreading wisps of gauze over 
the higher slopes, which soon whirled into muslin 
scarfs with an occasional ostrich plume shot 
through with sunshine. At times a cataract of this 
grey sea vapour would plunge over the slopes of a 
gorge and spread abroad into a billowy lake that 
swirled round the basin of the valley and then sud- 
denly lifted, allowing a cataract of sunshine to 
pour down into the hollows which were dewy damp 
from the mist. 

It was a strange atmosphere with innumerable 
changes from minute to minute. 

“ For me the shadows of the mist — the shadows 
touched by no ray of sunshine,” he cried when he 
felt the cold salt breath of the vapour upon his 
face. 

And then he bowed his head and prayed that the 
shadows might flee away and the Daystar arise 
once more to lighten the souls of the people as he 
had hoped that they would be enlightened. 

When he unclosed his eyes, after that solemn 
space in which a man stretches out weak hands, 
“ groping blindly in the darkness,” hoping that 
they will touch God’s right hand in that darkness 
and be guided into a right path, he saw the tall 
figure of a man standing on a crag watching him. 


142 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The man had the aspect of a statue of stone looking 
out of a whirl of sea-mist. 

Wesley saw that it was Bennet, the man by whom 
he had been met when he was walking through this 
valley for the first time with Nelly Polwhele. He 
had heard a great deal about the man during the 
few weeks that he had sojourned in the neighbour- 
hood. He found that he was a man of some educa- 
tion — certainly w 7 ith a far more intimate knowl- 
edge of the classics than was possessed by most of 
the parsons west of Exeter. He had been a school- 
master in Somerset, but his erratic habits had pre- 
vented him from making any position for himself. 
He had become acquainted with Nelly Polwhele at 
Bristol, and his devotion to her amounted almost 
to a madness. It was all to no purpose that she 
refused to listen to him; he renewed his suit in 
season and out of season until his persistence 
amounted to persecution. Of course Nelly found 
many self-constituted champions, and Bennet was 
attacked and beaten more than once when off his 
guard. When, however, he was prepared for their 
assault he had shown himself to be more than a 
match for the best of them. The fact that he had 
disabled for some weeks two of his assailants did 
not make him any more popular than he had been 
in the neighbourhood. 

There he stood looking at Wesley, and there he 
remained for several minutes, looking more than 
ever like a grey stone figure on a rough granite 
pedestal. 

It was not until Wesley had put his horse in mo- 
tion that the man held up one hand, saying: 

“ Give me one minute, Mr. Wesley. I know that 
you are not afraid of me. Why should you be? ” 

“Why, indeed?” said Wesley. “I know not 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 143 


why I should fear you, seeing that I fear no man 
who lives on this earth? ” 

“ You came hither with a great blowing of trum- 
pets, Mr. Wesley,” said the man. “ You were the 
one that was to overthrow all the old ways of the 
Church — you were to make such a noise as would 
cause the good old dame to awake from her slumber 
of a century. Well, you did cause her to awake; 
but the noise that you made awoke more than that 
good mother, the Church of England — it aroused 
a demon or two that had been slumbering in these 
valleys, and they began to show what they could 
do. They did not forget their ancient trick — an 
angel of light — isn’t that the wiliest sorcery of our 
ancient friend, the Devil, Mr. Wesley? ” 

“ You should know, if you are his servant sent to 
mock me,” said Wesley. 

“ You have taught the people a religion of emo- 
tion, and can you wonder that the Enemy has taken 
up your challenge and gone far beyond you in the 
same direction? He found a ready tool and a 
ready fool in your ardent disciple with the comical 
Welsh name — Richard Pritchard, to wit. He has 
shown the people that you were too tame, and the 
water-finder hath found fire to be more attractive 
as a subject than insipid water. You are beaten 
out of the field, Mr. Wesley. As usual, the pupil 
hath surpassed the master, and you find yourself 
in the second place.” 

Wesley sat with his head bent down to his horse’s 
neck. He made no reply to the man’s scoff ; what 
to him was the scoffing of this man? When one is 
sitting in the midst of the ruins of his house what 
matters it if the wind blows over one a handful of 
dust off the roadside? 

“ John Wesley, the preacher, hath been deposed, 


144 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


and Pritchard, the prophet, reigns in his stead,” the 
man went on. “ Ay, and all the day you have been 
saying to yourself, i What have I done to deserve 
this? What have I done to deserve this? ’ Dare 
you deny it, O preacher of the Gospel of Truth? ” 

Wesley bowed his head once more. 

“ Mayhap you found no answer ready,” Bennet 
cried. “ Then I’ll let you into the secret, John 
Wesley. You are being rightly punished because 
you have been thinking more of the love of woman 
than of the Love of God.” 

Wesley’s head remained bent no longer. 

“ What mean you by that gibe, man?” he 
cried. 

“ Ask your own heart w 7 hat I mean,” said the 
man fiercely. “ Your ow n heart knows full w r ell 
that you sought to win the love of the woman who 
walked wdth you on this road little more than a 
month ago, and who ministered to you on the day 
of your great preaching — you took her love from 
those to w^hom she ow 7 ed it, and you have cherished, 
albeit you know that she can never be a w r ife to 
you.” 

“ The Lord rebuke thee,” said Wesley, w r hen the 
man made a pause. 

“ Nay, ’tis on you that the rebuke has fallen, and 
you know it, John Wesley,” cried Bennet, more 
fiercely than ever. “ Nelly Polwhele would have 
come to love me in time had not you come between 
us — that I know — I know it, I tell you, I know 
it — my love for her is so overwhelming that she 
would not have been able to hold out against it. 
But you came, and — answer me, man: when it 
was written to you that you were to return hither 
in hot haste to combat the folly of Pritchard, did 
not your heart exult with the thought singing 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 145 


through it/ I shall see her again — I shall be beside 
her once more ’? ” 

Wesley started so that his horse sprang for- 
ward and the man before him barely escaped being 
knocked down. But Bennet did not even pretend 
that he fancied Wesley intended riding him down. 
He only laughed savagely, saying : 

“ That start of yours tells me that I know what 
is in your heart better than you do yourself. Well, 
it hath made a revelation to you now, Mr. Wesley, 
and if you are wise you will profit by it. I tell 
you that if you think of her again you are lost — 
you are lost. The first rebuke has fallen upon you 
from above. ? Tis a light one. But what will 
the second be? Ponder upon that question, sir. 
Know that even now she is softening toward me. 
Come not between us again. Man, the love of 
woman is not for such as you, least of all the love 
of a child whose heart is as the heart of the Spring 
season quivering with the joy of life. Now ride 
on, sir, and ask your reason if I have not counselled 
you aright.” 

He had spoken almost frantically at first; but 
his voice had fallen : he had become almost calm 
while uttering his last sentences. 

He took off his hat, stepped to one side, and 
pointed down the road. He kept his arm stretched 
out and his fingers as an index, while Wesley looked 
at him, as if about to make a reply. 

But if Wesley meant to speak he relinquished his 
intention. He looked at the man without a word, 
and without breaking the silence, urged his horse 
forward and rode slowly away. 


CHAPTER XIII 


John Wesley had ample food for thought for 
the remainder of his journey. He knew that the 
man who had appeared to him so suddenly out of 
the mist had for some time been on the brink of 
madness through his wild passion for Nelly Pol- 
whele, which brought about a frenzy of jealousy 
in respect of any man whom he saw near the girl. 
The fierceness of his gibes was due to this madness 
of his. But had the wretch stumbled in his blind- 
ness over a true thing? Was it the truth that he, 
Wesley, had all unknown to himself drawn that 
girl close to him by a tenderer cord than that which 
had caused her to minister to his needs after he had 
preached his first great sermon? 

The very idea of such a thing happening was 
startling to him. It would have seemed shocking 
to him if it had not seemed incredible. How was 
it possible, he asked himself, that that girl could 
have been drawn to love him? What was he to 
attract the love of such a young woman? He was 
in all matters save only one, cold and austere. He 
knew that his austereness had been made the sub- 
ject of ridicule — of caricature — at Oxford and 
Bath and elsewhere. He had been called lugu- 
brious by reason of his dwelling so intently on the 
severer side of life, and he had never thought it 
necessary to defend himself from such charges. He 
was sure that they were not true. 

That was the manner of man that he was, and 
this being so, how was it possible that he should 

146 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 14T 


ever draw to himself the love of such a bright crea- 
ture as Nelly Polwhele? What was she? Why, 
the very opposite to him in every respect. She was 
vivacious — almost frivolous; she had taken a de- 
light in all the gaieties of life — why, the first time 
he saw her she had been in the act of imitating a 
notorious play-actress, and, what made it worse, 
she was playing the part extremely well. To be 
sure she had taken his reproof with an acknowledg- 
ment that it was deserved, and she had of her own 
free will and under no pressure from him promised 
that she would never again enter a playhouse ; but 
still he knew that the desire for such gaieties was 
not eradicated from her nature. It would be un- 
natural to suppose that it was. In short, she had 
nothing in common with him, and to fancy that 
she had seen anything in him to attract her love 
would be to fancy the butterfly in rapture around 
a thistle. 

Oh, it was incredible that such a thing should 
happen. The notion was the outcome of the jeal- 
ousy of that wretch. Why, the first time that the 
man had seen them together had he not burst out 
on them, accusing him of stealing away the child’s 
affection, although he had not been ten minutes by 
her side? 

Of course the notion was preposterous. He felt 
that it was so, and at the same moment that this 
conviction came to him he was conscious of a little 
feeling of sadness to think that it was so. The 
more certain he became on the matter the greater 
was the regret that he felt. 

Was it curious that he should dwell upon what 
the man had said last rather than upon what he 
had said first? But some time had passed before 
he recalled the charge that Bennet had brought 


148 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


against him almost immediately after they had 
met — the charge of having Nelly Polwhele in his 
thoughts rather than the work with which he had 
been entrusted by his Maker. The man had ac- 
cused him of loving the girl, and declared that his 
present trouble was the rebuke that he had earned. 

He had been startled by this accusation. Was 
that because he did not know all that was in his 
own heart? Could it be possible that he loved 
Nelly Polwhele? Once before he had asked him- 
self this question, and he had not been able to 
assure himself as to how it should be answered, 
before he received that letter calling him back to 
this neighbourhood; and all thoughts that did not 
bear upon the subject of that letter were swept 
from his mind. He knew that he heard in his ear 
a quick whisper that said : 

“ You will be beside her again within four days; ” 
but only for a single second had that thought taken 
possession of him. It had come to him with the 
leap up of a candle flame before it is extinguished. 
That thought had been quenched at the moment 
of its exuberance, and now he knew that this ac- 
cusation brought against him was false ; not once — 
not for a single moment, even when riding far into 
the evening through the lonely places of the valley 
where he might have looked to feel cheered by such 
a thought, had his heart whispered to him: 

“ You mil be beside her again within four days” 

She had not come between him and the work 
which he had to do. 

But now the man had said to him all that 
brought back his thoughts to Nelly Polwhele; and 
having, as he fancied, answered the question 
which he put to him respecting her loving him, he 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 14$ 


found himself face to face with the Question of the 
possibility of his loving her. 

It came upon him with the force of a blow ; the 
logical outcome of his first reflections : 

“ If I found it incredible that she could have any 
affection for me because we have nothing in com- 
mon, is not the same reason sufficient to convince 
me that it is impossible I could love her? ” 

He was exceedingly anxious to assure himself 
that the feeling which he had for her was not the 
love which a man has for a woman ; but he did not 
feel any great exultation on coming to this logical 
conclusion of his consideration of the question 
which had been suggested to him by the accusa- 
tions of Bennet; on the contrary, he was conscious 
of a certain plaintive note in the midst of all his 
logic — a plaintive human note — the desire of a good 
man for the love of a good woman. He felt very 
lonely riding down that valley of sea-mist permeated 
not with the cold of the sea, but with the warmth of 
the sunlight that struck some of the highest green 
ridges of the slopes above him. His logic had led 
him only into his barren loneliness, until his sound 
mental training, which compelled him to examine 
an argument from every standpoint, asserted itself 
and he found that his logic was carrying him on 
still further, for now it was saying to him : 

“ If you , who have nothing in common with that 
young woman , have been led to love her, what is 
there incredible in the suggestion that she has been 
led to love you?” 

Then it was that he was conscious of a feeling 
of exultation. His own heart seemed to be re- 
vealed to him in a moment. Only for a moment, 
however; for he gave a cry, passing his hand 


150 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


athwart his face as if to sweep away a film of mist 
from before his eyes. 

“ Madness — madness and disaster ! The love of 
woman is not for such as I — the man spoke the 
truth. The love of woman is not for me. Not for 
me the sweet companionship, the fireside of home, 
the little cradle from which comes the little cry — 
not for me — not for me ! ” 

He rode on, and so docile had his mind become 
through the stern discipline of years, not once did 
his thoughts stray to Nelly from the grave matter 
which he had been considering when he encoun- 
tered Bennet — not once did he think even of 
Bennet. What he had before him was the ques- 
tion of what steps he should take to counteract 
the mischief which had been done and was still 
being done by the man who had taken it upon him 
to predict the end of the world. 

A change seemed to have come over his way of 
looking at the matter. Previously he had not seen 
his way clearly; the mist that was sweeping 
through the valley seemed to have obscured his 
mental vision. He had been aware of a certain ill- 
defined sympathy in regard to the man since he had 
shown himself to be something of a mystic; his 
trance and his account of the vision that he had 
seen had urged Wesley’s interest into another chan- 
nel, as it were; so that he found himself consider- 
ing somewhat dreamily the whole question of the 
trustworthiness of visions, and then he had been 
able to agree with his friends at the Mill who had 
certainly not taken very long to make up their 
minds as to how Pritchard should be dealt with. 

Now, however, Wesley seemed to see his way 
clearly. He became practical in a moment. He 
perceived that it was necessary for him to dis- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 151 


sociate himself and his system from such as Pritch- 
ard — men who sought to play solely upon the 
emotions of their hearers, and who had nothing 
of the Truth to offer them however receptive their 
hearers’ hearts had become. He did not doubt 
that Pritchard would take credit to himself for the 
non-fulfilment of his prophecy. He would bring 
forward the case of Jonah and Nineveh. Jonah 
had said definitely that Nineveh would be de- 
stroyed on a certain day; but the inhabitants had 
been aroused to repent, and the city’s last day had 
been deferred. He would take credit to himself 
for arresting the Day of Judgment, his prophecy 
having brought about the repentance of his neigh- 
bours at Porthawn and Ruthallion, and thus the 
fact of his prophecy not being realised would actu- 
ally add to the fame which he had already achieved, 
and his harmfulness would be proportionately 
increased. 

Wesley knew that not much time was left to 
him and his friends to take action as it seemed 
right to him. The day was Friday, and he would 
preach on Sunday and state his views in respect 
of Pritchard and his following, so that it should 
be known that he discountenanced their acts. He 
had seen and heard enough during his ride through 
the valley to let him know how imminent was dis- 
aster to the whole system of which he was the 
exponent. 

He had succeeded in banishing from his mind 
every thought which he had had in regard to Nelly 
Polwhele; so that it was somewhat disturbing for 
him to come upon her close to the entrance gates 
to the Court. She was carrying a wicker bird cage 
containing two young doves; he heard her voice 
talking to the birds before he recognised her. For 


152 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


a moment he felt that he should stop his horse and 
allow her to proceed so far in front of him that she 
should reach the village without his overtaking 
her; but a moment’s reflection was enough to as- 
sure him that to act in this way would be cow- 
ardice. He had succeeded in banishing her from 
his mind, and that gave him confidence in his own 
power to abide by the decision to which he had come 
respecting her. To avoid her at this time would 
have been to confess to himself that he was not 
strong enough to control his own heart; and he 
believed that he was strong enough to do so. There- 
fore he found himself once more beside her and felt 
that he was wdthout a trouble in the w T orld. 

Of course she became very red when he spoke her 
name and stooped from his saddle to give her his 
hand. She had blushed in the same way an hour 
before when old Squire Trevelyan had found her 
with his daughters and said a kindly word to 
her. 

“ I have been to my young ladies,” she said, “ and 
see what they have given to me, sir.” She held up 
the cage and the birds turned their heads daintily 
in order to eye him. “ They were found in a nest 
by one of the keepers, and as my ladies are going 
to London they gave the little birds to me. I hope 
they will thrive under my care.” 

“ Why should they not? ” he said. u You will 
be a mother to them and they will teach you.” 

She laughed with a puzzled wrinkle between her 
eyes. 

“ Teach me, sir? ” 

“ Ay, they will teach you, I would fain hope, how 
becoming is a sober shade of dress even to the 
young.” 

“ Do I need to be taught such a lesson, Mr. Wes- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 153 


ley? ” she cried, and now her face was in need of 
such a lesson. She spoke as if hurt by his sug- 
gestion. 

“ I have never seen you dressed except modestly 
and as is becoming to a young woman,” he replied. 
“ Indeed I meant not what I said to be a reproach. 
I only said what came first to mind when I saw 
those dainty well-dressed creatures. My thought 
was : 6 Her association with such companions will 
surely prevent her from yielding to the weakness of 
most young women. She will see that the dove 
conveys gentleness to the mind, whereas the peacock 
is the type of all that is to be despised.’ Then, my 
dear child, the pair of turtle doves is an emblem of 
sacrifice.” 

“ Is that why they were chosen as the symbols 
of love? ” said the girl, after a pause. 

He looked at her curiously for some time. He 
wondered what was in her mind. Had she gone as 
far as her words suggested in her knowledge of 
what it meant to love? 

“ I think that there can be no true love without 
self-sacrifice,” said he. “ ’Tis the very essence — 
the spiritual part of love.” 

“ Is it so in verity, sir? ” she cried. “ Now I have 
ever thought that what is called love is of all things 
the most selfish. Were it not so why should it 
provoke men to quarrel — nay, the quarrelling is 
not only on the side of the men. I have seen sis- 
ters up in arms simply because the lover of one 
had given a kindly glance to the other.” 

“ To be ready to sacrifice one’s self to save the 
loved one from disaster — from trouble in any shape 
or form — that is the love that is true, be assured 
of that, Nelly,” said he. “ Love, if it be true, will 
help one to do one’s duty— to our Maker as well 


154 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


as to our fellow-men, and to do that duty without a 
thought of whatever sacrifices it may demand. 
Love, if it be true, will not shrink from the greatest 
sacrifice that can be demanded of it — separation 
from the one who is beloved — a dividing asunder 
forever. That is why it is the noblest part of a 
man’s nature, and that is why it should not be 
lightly spoken of as is done daily.” 

“ Ah, sir,” she said, “ that may be the love that 
poets dream of ; I have read out of poetry books to 
my ladies at the Court, when they were having 
their hair brushed. There was the poet Waller, 
whom they liked to have read to them, and Mr. 
Pope, in places. Mr. Marlowe they had a great 
regard for. They all put their dreams of love into 
beautiful words that would make the coldest of us 
in love with love. But for the real thing for daily 
life I think that simple folk must needs be content 
with the homelier variety.” 

“ There is only one sort of love, and that is love,” 
said he. “ ’Tis a flower that blooms as well in a 
cottage garden as in the parterres of a palace — 
nay, there are plants that thrive best in a poor soil, 
becoming stunted and losing their fragrance in 
rich ground, and it hath oft seemed to me that 
love is such a growth.” 

“And yet I have heard it said that love flies out 
at the window when poverty comes in by the door,” 
she said. 

“That never was love; ’twas something that 
came in the disguise of love.” 

“I do believe that there are many such sham 
things prowling about, and knocking at such doors 
as they find well painted. Some of them have 
heard of silver being stored away in old jugs, and 
some have gone round to the byres to see exactly 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 155 

how many cows were there before knocking at the 
door.” 

He smiled in response to her smiling. And then 
suddenly they both became grave. 

“ Have you had recent converse with that man 
Rennet? ” he asked suddenly. 

She swung the bird cage so quickly round that 
the doves were well-nigh jerked off their perch. 
She had flushed at the same moment, and a little 
frown was upon the face that she turned up to 
him. 

“ Why asked you that question? Is it because 
you were speaking of the sham loves, sir? ” she 
asked. 

“ I ask your pardon if I seem somewhat of a 
busybody, Nelly Polwhele,” he said. “ But the 
truth is that I — I find myself thinking of you at 
times — as a father — as an elder brother might 
think of — a sweet sister of tender years.” 

Now she was blushing rosier than before, and 
there was no frown upon her forehead. But she 
did not lower her eyes or turn them away from his 
face. There was about her no sign of the bashful 
country girl who has been paid a compliment by 
one above her in rank. She did not lower her eyes ; 
it was he who lowered his before her. 

“ ? Tis the truth, dear child, that I tell you : I have 
been strangely interested in you since the first day 
I saw you, and I have oft wondered what your 
future would be. I have thought of you in my 
prayers.” 

“ I do not deserve so much from you, sir,” she 
said softly, and now her eyes were on the ground, 
and he knew by the sound of her voice that they 
were full of tears. She spoke softly — jerkily. “ T 
do not deserve so much that is good, though if I 


156 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


were asked what thing on earth I valued most I 
should say that it was that you should think well 
of me.” 

“ How could I think otherwise, Nelly? ” he 
asked. “You gave me your promise of your own 
free will, not to allow any further longing after the 
playhouse to take possession of you, and I know 
that you have kept that promise. You never missed 
a preaching and you were ever attentive. I do not 
doubt that the seed sown in your heart will bear 
good fruit. Then you were thoughtful for my com- 
fort upon more than one occasion and — Why 
should you not dwell in my thoughts? Why 
should you not be associated with my hopes? Do 
you think that there is any tenderer feeling than 
that which a shepherd has for one of his lambs that 
he has turned into the path that leads to the fold? ” 

“ I am unworthy, sir, I have forgotten your teach- 
ing even before your words had ceased to sound in 
mine ears. I have not scrupled to deceive. I led 
on John Bennet to believe that I might relent 
toward him, when all the time I detested him.” 

“ Why did you do that? ” he asked gravely. 

“ It was to induce him to come to hear you 
preach, Mr. Wesley,” she replied. “ I thought that 
it was possible if he heard you preach that he 
might change his ways as so many others have 
changed theirs, and so I was led to promise to allow 
him to walk home with me if he came to the preach- 
ing. I felt that I was doing wrong at the time, 
though it did not seem so bad as it does now.” 

“ But you did not give him any further 
promise? ” 

“ None — none whatsoever. And when I found 
that he was unaffected by your preaching I refused 
him even the small favour — he thought it a favour 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 157 


— which I had granted him before. But I knew 
that I was double-dealing, and indeed I have cried 
over the thought of it, and when I heard that you 
were coming back I resolved to confess it all to 
you.” 

“ I encountered the man not more than half an 
hour ago,” said he. 

She seemed to be surprised. 

“ Then he has broken the promise which he made 
to me,” she cried. “ He gave me his word to for- 
sake this neighbourhood for two months, at least, 
and I believed that he went away.” 

“ By what means were you able to obtain such 
a promise from him?” asked Wesley. 

She was silent for some time — silent and ill at 
ease. At last she said slowly: 

“ I fear that I was guilty of double dealing again. 
I believe he went away with the impression that I 
would think with favour of him.” 

“ I fear that you meant to convey such an im- 
pression to him, Nelly.” 

“ I cannot deny it sir. I admit it. But I got 
rid of him. Oh, if you knew how he persecuted me 
you would not be hard on me.” 

“ My poor child, who am I that I should con- 
demn you? I do not say that you were not wrong 
to deceive him as you did ; the fact that your own 
conscience tells you that you were wrong proves 
that you were.” 

“ I do not desire to defend myself, sir ; and per- 
haps it was also wrong for me to think as I have 
been thinking during the past week or two that 
just as it is counted an honourable thing for a gen- 
eral in battle to hoodwink his enemy, so it may not 
be quite fair to a woman to call her double dealing 
for using the wits that she has for her own protec- 


158 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


tion. Were we endowed with wits for no purpose, 
do you think, Mr. Wesley? ” 

Mr. Wesley, the preacher of austerity, settled 
his countenance — not without difficulty — while he 
kept his eyes fixed upon the pretty face that looked 
up innocently to his own. He shook his head and 
raised a finger of reproof. He began to speak with 
gravity, his intention being to assure her of the 
danger there was trying to argue against the dic- 
tates of one’s conscience. If cunning was the gift 
of Nature, Conscience was the gift of God — that 
was in his mind when he began to speak. 

“ Child,” he began, “ you are in peril ; you 
are ” 

“A woman,” she cried. “I am a woman, and I 
know that there are some — they are all men — who 
assert that to be a woman is to be incapable of un- 
derstanding an argument — so that-. ” 

“ To be a woman is to be a creature that has no 
need of argument because feeling is ever more po- 
tent than argument,” said he. “ To be a woman 
is to be a creature of feeling; of grace, of tenderness 
— of womanliness. If your conscience tells you 
that you were wrong to deceive John Bennet, be 
sure that you were wrong; but Heaven forbid that 
I should condemn you for acting as your womanly 
wit prompted. And may Heaven forgive me if I 
speak for once as a man rather than a preacher. 
’Tis because I have spoken so that I — I — oh, if I 
do not run away at once there is no knowing where 
I may end. Fare thee well, child; and be sure — 
oh, be sure that your conscience is your true direc- 
tor, not your woman’s wits — and least of all, John 
Wesley, the preacher.” 

He laid his hand tenderly upon her head; then 
suddenly drew it back with a jerk as if he had been 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 159 


stung upon the palm. His horse started, and he 
made no attempt to restrain it, even when it began 
to canter. In a few seconds he had gone round 
the bend on the road beneath the trees that over- 
hung the wall of the Trevelyan demesne. 

He had reached the house where he was to lodge 
before he recollected that although he had been 
conversing with Nelly Polwhele for close upon 
twenty minutes — although they had touched upon 
some topics of common interest, neither of them 
had referred even in the most distant way to the 
matter which had brought about his return to the 
neighbourhood; neither of them had so much as 
mentioned the name of Pritchard, or referred to 
his prophecy of the End of all things. 

As a matter of fact a whole hour had passed be- 
fore John Wesley remembered that it was neces- 
sary for him to determine as speedily as possible 
what form his protest against the man and his act 
should take. 

His sudden coming upon Nelly Polwhele had left 
a rather disturbing impression upon him — at first 
a delightfully disturbing impression, and then one 
that added to the gravity of bis thoughts — in fact 
just such a complex impression as is produced 
upon an ordinary man when coming out of the 
presence of the woman whom he loves, he knows 
not why. 

The sum of his reflections regarding their meet- 
ing was that while he had an uneasy feeling that 
he had spoken too impulsively to her at the moment 
of parting from her, yet altogether he was the better 
of having been with her. A cup of cool water in 
the desert — those were the words that came to him 
when he was alone in his room. After the horri- 
ble scenes that he had witnessed while riding 


160 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


through the valley — after the horrible torture to 
which he had been subjected by the gibes of John 
Bennet — she had appeared before his weary eyes, 
so fresh, so sweet, so gracious! Truly he was the 
better for being near her, and once more he 
repeated the word: 

“ A cup of cool water in the desert land.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


Wesley lost no time in announcing to his friends 
the decision to which he had come. He was to 
preach on Sunday at the place where his first meet- 
ing had been held, and he felt sure that his con- 
gregation w r ould be sufficiently large for his pur- 
pose, which was to let it be known throughout the 
country that he and all those w r ho were associated 
with him in his work in Cornwall discountenanced 
Pritchard in every way. To be sure there was very 
little time left to them to spread abroad the news 
that Mr. Wesley had returned and would preach on 
Sunday. Only a single day remained to them, and 
that was not enough to allow of the announcement 
being made outside an area of twenty-five or thirty 
miles from Porthawn ; but when Mr. Hartwell and 
Jake Pullsford shook their heads and doubted if 
this preaching would bring together more than a 
few hundred people, these being the inhabitants of 
the villages and hamlets wfithin a mile or two of 
Porthawn, Wesley explained that all that w r as 
necessary to be done would be accomplished even 
by a small congregation. All that should be 
aimed at was to place it on record that Pritchard 
had done what he had done on his own responsi- 
bility and without any previous consultation with 
the leader of the movement with which he had been 
associated. But, of course, the more people who 
would be present the more fully his object would 
be accomplished, and Wesley’s friends sent their 
message with all speed and in every direction. 

161 


162 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ I would fain believe that the news of this dis- 
tressing folly of Pritchard’s has not spread very 
far abroad,” said Wesley. “ I travelled, as you 
know, through a large portion of the country on 
my return, and yet it was not until I had reached 
the head of the valley that the least whisper of the 
matter reached me; I would fain hope that the 
trouble will be only local.” 

“ Those who are opposed to us will take the best 
of care to prevent it from being circumscribed,” 
said Mr. Hartwell. “ The captain of my mine 
tells me that there is excitement as far away as 
Falmouth and Truro over the prediction. In some 
districts no work has been done for several days. 
That news I had this morning.” 

“ ’Tis more serious than I thought possible it 
could be,” said Wesley. “ Our task is not an easy 
one, but with God’s help it shall be fulfilled.” 

Going forth through the village in the early 
afternoon, he was surprised to find so much evi- 
dence of the credence which the people had given 
to the prediction and so pronounced a tendency to 
connect it with the movement begun by Wesley in 
the early Summer. It seemed to be taken for 
granted that Wesley had come back to urge upon 
them the need for immediate repentance. This 
Pritchard had done with great vehemence ever 
since he had prophesied the Great Day. 

Wesley found his old friends agitated beyond 
measure — even those who had professed to have re- 
ceived the Word that he had preached. No boats 
except those owned by Nelly Polwhele’s father had 
put off to the fishing ground for some days, and, 
strange to say, although Isaac Polwhele held that 
Pritchard had gone too far in all that he had said, 
he returned on Friday morning from his night’s 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 163 


fishing with a strange story of lights seen in the 
depths of the Channel — something like fires seeth- 
ing beneath the surface — of wonderful disturb- 
ances of the waters, although only the lightest of 
breezes was hovering round the coast; and of a 
sudden sound, thunderous, with the noise as of a 
cataract tumbling in the distance, followed by the 
rolling of large waves in spite of the fact that for 
the time there was not a breath stirring the air. 

The old fisherman told his story of these things 
without any reserve; but while he was still dis- 
posed to give a contemptuous nod when anyone 
mentioned Pritchard’s name, his experience through 
that night had done much to widen Pritchard’s in- 
fluence until at last there seemed to be neither 
fisherman nor boat-builder that did not dread the 
dawning of Monday. 

And yet Nelly had not spoken one word about 
the prophecy when he had talked with her a few 
hours before! 

This circumstance caused Wesley no little sur- 
prise. He asked himself if Polwhele’s girl was the 
only sensible person in the neighbourhood. While 
the other people were overwhelmed at the prospect 
of a catastrophe on Monday, she had gone to visit 
her young ladies and brought back with her a pair 
of young doves. 

He began to feel that he had never given the girl 
credit for some of those qualities which she pos- 
sessed — qualities which certainly are not shared 
by the majority of womankind. 

Her father told him before he had reached the 
village something of the marvels which had come 
under his notice only two nights before. But he 
tried to make it plain that he did not attach any 
great importance to them : he did not regard them 


164 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


as portents, however other people might be dis- 
posed to do so. The old fisherman was shrewd 
enough to guess that Mr. Wesley’s sympathies were 
not with Pritchard. Still he could not deny that 
what he had seen and heard surpassed all his ex- 
perience of the Channel, although he allowed that 
he had heard of the like from the lips of mariners 
who had voyaged far and wide, and had probably 
been disbelieved in both hemispheres, by the best 
judges of what was credible. He had heard, for 
instance, of parallels where through long sultry 
nights the ocean had seemed one mass of flame. 
But he himself was no deep-sea sailor. 

“ A sea of flame is common enough in some quar- 
ters,” said Wesley. “ I myself have seen the At- 
lantic palpitating like a furnace, and our ship 
dashed flakes of fire from the waters that were 
cloven by her cut-water. But the sounds which 
you say you heard — think you not that they came 
from a distant thunderstorm?” 

“ Likely enough, sir, likely enough,” replied the 
man after a pause; but he spoke in a way that as- 
sured Mr. Wesley that he knew very well that the 
sounds had not come from a thunderstorm, how- 
ever distant. He had had plenty of experience of 
thunderstorms, near at hand as well as far off. 

“ Or Admiral Hawke’s ships — might not some of 
the Admiral’s fleet have come within a mile or two 
of the coast and discharged their carronades? ” 
Wesley suggested. 

“ Ay, sir, the boom of a ship’s gun carries a long 
way on the water,” said the fisherman, but in a 
tone that suggested graver doubt than before. 

“ ’Tis clear you are convinced that what you 
heard was stranger than either thunder or gun- 
powder,” said he. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 165 


“ Nay, sir, what I am thinking of is the sudden 
uprise of the sea,” said Polwhele. “ Without warn- 
ing our smack began to sway so that the mast well- 
nigh went by the board, albeit there was ne’er a 
draught o’ wind. And there was summat besides 
that I kept back from all the world.” 

“ A greater mystery still? ” said Wesley. 

“ The biggest of all, sir ; after the last rumblings 
my mates thought that we had been long enough 
anchored on the fishing bank; so we got in the 
grapple and laid out sweeps to pull the smack to 
the shore.” 

He made another pause, and looked into the face 
of his auditor and then out seawards. He took a 
step or two away and stood thoughtfully with 
pursed out lips. 

“And then?” said Wesley. 

“ And then, sir, then — sir, the oar blades refused 
to sink. They struck on something hard, though 
not with the hardness of a rock or even a sand bank. 
’Twas like as if they had fallen on a floating dead 
body — I know what the feel is, sir. When the 
Gloriana, East Indiaman, went ashore forty years 
agone, and broke up on the Teeth — you know the 
reef, sir — we were coming on the bodies o’ the crew 
for weeks after, as they came to the surface, as 
bodies will after eight days — some say ten, but I 
stick to eight.” 

“ But if you came upon the body of a drowned 
man the night before last you would surely have 
reported it, Polwhele,” said Wesley. 

“ It were dead bodies that we touched wi’ our 
blades, but they was the dead bodies of fishes. 
There they floated, sir, thick as jelly bags after a 
Spring tide — hundreds of them — thousands of them 
— all round the boats — big and little — mackerel 


166 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


and cod and congers and skates and some monsters 
that I had never seen before, with mighty heads. 
They held the boat by their numbers, blocking its 
course till we got up a flare o’ pitch and held it out 
on an oar and saw what was the matter. That was 
how it came about that we landed with fish up to 
the gunwale, though we had hauled in empty seines 
— or well-nigh empty half an hour before. And if 
all the other boats had been out that night they 
would have been filled likewise. I tell you, sir, all 
we picked up made no difference to the shoals that 
was about us. But I said no word to mortal man 
about this event nor e’en to my own wife. What 
would be the good? I asks you, sir. The poor 
folk be troubled enow over Dick Pritchard, as no 
doubt you heard. I would that Tuesday was safe 
o’er us. List, you can hear the voice o’ Simon Bar- 
well baying the boys into the fold like a sheep dog. 
Simon was a sad evil liver before he heard you 
preach, sir, and now he’s telling the lads that they 
have only another day and half to repent, so they’d 
best not put it off too long.” 

Wesley looked in the direction he indicated and 
saw a young fellow mounted on a fish barrel, 
haranguing a group of men and women. He was 
far off, but his voice every now and again reached 
the place where Wesley and the old man stood. 

“ There be some that holds that Simon himself 
would ha’ done well to begin his repentance a while 
back,” resumed Pol whele. “ And there’s some 
others that must needs scamp their penitence, if I 
have a memory at all; howsomever, Dick Pritch- 
ard ” 

“ Ah, friend,” said Wesley, “ if I could think that 
the repentance which is being brought about 
through fear of Monday will last, I would take joy 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 16? 


to stand by the side of Pritchard and learn from 
him, but alas, I fear that when Monday comes and 
goes ” 

“ But will it come and go?” cried the old man 
eagerly. 

“ I cannot tell — no man living can tell if to-mor- 
row will come and go, or if he will live to see the 
day lawn. We know so much, but no more, and I 
hold that any man who says that he knows more is 
tempting the Lord.” 

“ And I hold with you, Mr. Wesley; only not al- 
together so fast since those happenings I have re- 
hearsed to you. What was it slew them fish, sir? ” 

“ I cannot tell you that. I have heard that some 
of your mines are pierced far below the sea, and 
that for miles out. Perhaps we shall hear that a 
store of gunpowder exploded in one of them, throw- 
ing off the roof and killing the fish in the water 
over it — I do not say that this is the only explana- 
tion of the matter. I make no pretence to account 
for all that you saw and heard. I have heard of 
earthquakes beneath the water.” 

“ Earthquakes in divers places, Mr. Wesley, 
’twas from that text Dick Pritchard preached last 
Sunday.” The man’s voice was lowered, and there 
was something of awe in his whisper. “ He 
prophesied that there would be an earthquake in 
divers places — meaning the sea — before the coming 
of the terrible day, Monday next. Now you know, 
sir, why I said naught that was particular — only 
hazy like — that none could seize hold upon about 
Thursday’s fishing. But I’ve told you, Mr. Wes- 
ley, whatever may happen.” 

He took off his hat and walked away, when he 
had looked for some moments into Wesley’s face, 
and noted the expression that it wore. 


168 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


And, indeed, Wesley was perturbed as be turned 
and went up t-lie little track that led to the summit 
of the cliffs, and the breezy space that swept up to 
the wood. He was greatly perturbed by the plain 
statement of the fisherman. He had been anxious 
to take the most favourable view of Pritchard and 
his predictions. He had believed that the man, 
however foolish and vain he might be, had been 
sincere in his conviction that he was chosen by 
Heaven to prophesy the approaching end of all 
things; but now the impression was forced upon 
him that the man was on a level with the sooth- 
sayers of heathendom. 

Even though he had taken a ludicrously illiterate 
view of the text, “ There shall be earthquakes in 
divers places,” he had made it the subject of an- 
other prediction, and it seemed as if this prediction 
had actually been realised, although only a single 
fisherman, and he a friend of Pritchard’s, was in a 
position to testify to it. 

Wesley had heard it said more than once that the 
finding of water by the aid of a divining rod was a 
devil’s trick ; but he had never taken such a view of 
the matter ; he affirmed that he would be slow to be- 
lieve that a skill which had for its object so excel- 
lent an object as the finding of a spring of the most 
blessed gift of water, should be attributed to the 
Enemy. He preferred to assume that the finding 
of water was the result of a certain delicacy of per- 
ception on the part of the man with the hazel wand, 
just as the detection of a false harmony in music is 
due to a refinement of the sense of hearing on the 
part of other men. 

But was he to believe that any man possessed 
such a sense as enabled him to predict an earth- 
quake? 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 169 


It was impossible for him to believe it. And 
what then was he to think of the man who had fore- 
told such an event — an event which had actually 
taken place within a week of his prediction? 

The man could only be a soothsayer. The very 
fact of his corrupting the text out of the Sacred 
Word was a proof of this. If he were in the serv- 
ice of God, he would never have mistaken the word 
in the text to mean the sea. The man was a servant 
of the Evil One, and Wesley felt once more that he 
himself had been to blame in admitting him to his 
fellowship, without subjecting him to such tests as 
would have proved his faith. 

And then he found himself face to face with the 
further question: If the man had, by reason of 
his possession of a certain power, achieved success 
in his forecast of one extraordinary event, was it to 
be assumed that the other event — the one of supreme 
importance to the world, and all that dwell therein 
— would also take place? 

What, was it possible that the Arch Enemy had 
been able to get possession of the secret which not 
even the angels in heaven had fathomed, and had 
chosen this man to communicate it to some people 
in the world? 

What, was it possible that Satan, if he acquired 
that secret, would allow it to be revealed, thereby 
losing his hold upon as many of the people of the 
world as became truly repentant, and there was no 
doubt that Pritchard had urged repentance upon 
the people? 

It was a tangled web that Wesley found in his 
hand this day. No matter which end of it he began 
to work upon, his difficulties in untangling seemed 
the same. He was fearful of doing the man an in- 
justice; but how could he, as a faithful servant, 


170 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAlLED 


stand by and see the work with which he had been 
entrusted, wrecked and brought to naught? 

And then another point suggested itself to him: 
what if this prediction became the means of calling 
many to repentance — true repentance — how dread- 
ful would be his own condemnation if he were to 
oppose that which had been followed by blessing! 

It was the flexibility and the ceaseless activity 
of his mind that increased the difficulties of his 
position. He, and he only, could look at the matter 
from every standpoint and appreciate it in all its 
bearings. If he had not had the refuge of prayer, 
having faith that he would receive the Divine guid- 
ance, he would have allowed the vanity — if it was 
vanity — of Pritchard to be counteracted in the 
ordinary — in what seemed to be the natural way — 
namely, by the ridicule which would follow the non- 
fulfilment of his prophecy. 

He prayed. 


CHAPTER XV 


He had seated himself on the trunk of a fallen 
tree on the edge of the wood, and he had a feeling 
that he was not alone. The Summer ever seemed to 
him to be a spiritual essence — a beautiful creature 
of airy flashing draperies, diffusing perfumes as 
she went by. He had known the joy of her compan- 
ionship for several years, for no man had ampler 
opportunities of becoming acquainted with the 
seasons in all their phases. 

There was the sound of abundance of life in the 
woods behind him, and around the boles of the scat- 
tered trees in front of him the graceful little stoats 
were playing. At his feet were scattered all the 
wild flowers of the meadow. Where the earth was 
brown under the trees, myriads of fairy bells were 
hanging in clusters, and in the meadow the yellow 
buttercups shone like spangles upon a garment of 
green velvet. He was not close enough to the brink 
of the cliffs to be able to see the purple and blue 
and pink of the flowers scattered among the coarse 
herbage of the rocks. But the bank of gorse that 
flowed like a yellow river through the meadow 
could not be ignored. In the sunlight it was a 
glory to see. 

The sky was faintly grey, but the sea was of the 
brightest azure — the pure translucent blue of the 
sapphire, and it was alive with the light that seemed 
to burn subtly within the heart of a great jewel. 
But in the utter distance it became grey until it 
mingled imperceptibly with the sky. 

m 


172 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The poet-preacher saw everything that there was 
to be seen, and his faith was upheld as it ever was, 
by the gracious companionship of nature, and he 
cried now: 

“ Oh, that a man could speak to men in the 
language of the Summer ! ” 

Why could not all eyes of men look forth over 
that sea to where the heaven bowed down and 
mingled with it? Why could not men learn what 
was meant by this symbol of the mystic marriage 
of heaven and earth? Why should they continue 
to refuse the love which was offered them from 
above? 

Everything that he saw was a symbol to him of 
the love of which he was the herald — the love which 
is followed by a peace that passeth all understand- 
ing. He was conscious of this peace leaning over 
him with outstretched wings, and he felt that the 
answer to his prayer had come. He would make 
no further attempt to solve the difficulties which 
had perplexed him. The voice that breathed the 
message that soothed him was the same that Eli- 
jah heard, and it said : 

“ Rest in the Lord, and He shall direct thy ways.” 

He remained there for another hour, and then 
rose and made his way slowly toward the village. 

The meadow track led to a broad gap in the hedge 
of gorse, and just as he had passed through, he was 
aware of the quick pattering of a galloping horse 
on the short grass behind him, and before he had 
time to turn, the horseman had put his mount to the 
hedge, making a clear jump of it. 

“ What, ho ! ” cried the man, apparently recog- 
nising Wesley before the horse’s feet had reached 
the ground. “ What, ho ! ” and he pulled the ani- 
mal to its haunches. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 173 


Wesley saw that he was Parson Rodney, the good- 
humoured Rector who had spoken to him when 
he had been on the road with Nelly six weeks before. 

“ Ho, Mr. Wesley, I had heard that you were 
returning to us,” he cried. “ Is it your thought 
that at Monday’s Assize you will run a better chance 
if you are found in good company? What, sir, 
never shake your head in so gloomy a fashion. 
The Prophet Pritchard may be wrong. I was 
thinking of him when I came, upon a clump of 
guzzlers reeling along the road an hour ago — reel- 
ing along with the buttercups as yellow as gold 
under their feet, and the sunlight bringing out all 
the scents of the earth that we love so well — I 
thought what a pity ’twould be if the world should 
come to an end when all her creatures are so 
happy ! ” 

“ Pardon me, Reverend sir,” said Wesley. “ But 
I have at heart too much sorrow to enjoy any jest, 
least of all one made upon a matter that seems to 
me far too solemn for jesting.” 

“ Pshaw ! Mr. Wesley, what is there serious or 
solemn in the vapourings of a jackanapes? ” cried 
the other. “ What doth a parson of our church — 
and a learned parson into the bargain — a Fellow of 
his College — not a dunce like me — what, I say, doth 
such an one with the maunderings of a vain and 
unlettered bumpkin Whom his very godfathers and 
godmothers made a mark for ridicule when they 
had him christened Richard — Richard Pritchard?” 

“ Ah, sir,” said Wesley, “ you witnessed what 
you did an hour ago on the roadside — you saw what 
I saw, and yet you can ask me why I should be 
troubled. Were not you troubled, Mr. Rodney?” 

“ Troubled? Oh, ay; my horse became uneasy 
when one of the drunken rascals yelled out a ribald 


174 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


word or two across the hedge — I am very careful 
of my horse’s morals, sir ; I never let him hear any 
bad language. When we are out with the hounds 
I throw my kerchief over his ears when we chance 
to be nigh the Master or his huntsmen. That is 
why I laid over the rascal’s shoulders with my crop, 
though the hedge saved them from much that I in- 
tended. Trust me, Mr. Wesley, that is the way 
such fellows should be treated, and as for this 
Pritchard — faugh! a horsewhip on his back would 
bring him to his senses, though as a Justice of the 
Peace, I would be disposed to let this precious 
water-finder find what the nature of a horse-pond 
is like. Why, in Heaven’s name, do you trouble 
yourself about him? ” 

“ It was I who gave him countenance at first, sir. 
He made profession to me and I trusted him. I 
fear that the work on behalf of which I am very 
jealous may suffer through his indiscretion.” 

“ His indiscretion? your indiscretion, you surely 
mean, Mr. Wesley.” 

“ I accept your correction, sir.” 

“ Look ye here, Mr. Wesley, I have more respect 
for you, sir, than I have for any man of our cloth 
— ay, even though he may wear an apron and lawn 
sleeves. I know that as a clergyman I am not fit 
to black your shoes, but I am equally sure that as 
a man of the world, with a good working knowledge 
of human nature, I am beyond you; and that is 
why I tell you that this movement of yours has — 
well, it has too much movement in it to prove a 
lasting thing. You have never ridden to hounds 
or you would know that ’tis slow and steady that 
does it. If you keep up the pace from the start, 
you will be blown before the first half-hour is over, 
and where will you be when you have a double ditch 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 175 


to hop over? Why, you’ll be up to your neck in 
the mire of the first, Mr. Wesley, there are a good 
many ditches to be got over in the life of a beneficed 
clergyman of your Church and mine; and, my word 
for it, you would do well to take them slowly, and 
reserve your strength. You want to go too fast 
ahead — to rush your hedges — that’s how the thorns 
in the flesh thrive, and this Pritchard is only one 
of the many thorns that will make your life weari- 
some to you, and bring your movement to an end. 
You have never said a hard word about me, Mr. 
Wesley, though you had good reason to do so; and 
I have never said aught but what is good about 
you.” 

“ I know it, sir. Others have called me a busy- 
body — some a charlatan.” 

“ They were fools. You are the most admirable 
thing in the world, sir — a zealous parson; but a 
thoroughbred horse is not the best for daily use; a 
little blood is excellent, but not too much. Your 
zeal will wear you out — ay, and it will wear your 
listeners out sooner. You cannot expect to lead a 
perpetual revival, as people call it, and that’s why 
I am convinced that the humdrum system, with a 
stout woollen petticoat here and a bottle of sound 
port there, is the best for the parsons and the best 
for the people.” 

“ Your views are shrewd, and I dare not at this 
moment say that they are not justifiable. But for 
myself — sir, if God gives me strength, I shall not 
slacken the work with which I believe He hath en- 
trusted me — until our churches are filled with 
men and women eager in their search after the 
Truth.” 

“ If all your friends were like you, the thing 
might be accomplished, Mr. Wesley; but the break- 


176 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


down of your methods — your Methodism — will 
come through your introduction of the laity as your 
chief workers. You will find yourself face to face 
with Pritchards, and the last state of the people 
will be, as it is now, worse than the first. You 
may have done some good since you came here to 
preach a month ago, but you have — unwittingly, 
I say — done great mischief. My parishioners were 
heretofore living quite comfortably, they were sat- 
isfied with my ministrations, such as they were. I 
have heard it said that a healthy man does not know 
that he has any liver or spleen or vitals within his 
body: Tis only the sick that have that knowledge. 
Well, the same is true in respect to their souls. 
Sir, there was not a man of my flock that knew he 
had a soul. There was a healthy condition of 
things for you ! ” 

“ Sir, I entreat of you not to mock ! ” 

“ I am not mocking, friend Wesley. What have 
people in the state of life to which the majority 
of my parishioners have been called, to do with the 
state of their souls? There should be a law that 
no man below the Game Law qualification shall 
assume that he has a soul.” 

“ I cannot listen further to you, Mr. Rodney.” 

“ Nay, Mr. Wesley, whatever you be, I’ll swear 
that you are no coward : you will not run away by 
reason of not agreeing with an honest opponent — 
and I am not an opponent — I am only an honest 
friend. I say that my people were simple, homely 
people who respected me because I never wittingly 
awoke a man or woman who went asleep in my 
church, and because I never bothered them with 
long sermons, when they could hear their Sunday 
dinners frizzling in their cottages — they respected 
me for that, but more because they knew I had a 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 177 


sound knowledge of a horse, a boat, a dog and a 
game-cock.” 

“ Mr. Rodney ” 

“ Pshaw, Wesley, have you not eyes to see that 
the Church of England exists more for the bodies 
than the souls of the people? I would rather see 
a good, sturdy lot of Englishmen in England — 
good drinkers of honest ale, breeders of good fat 
cattle, and growers of golden wheat — honest, hard 
swearers of honest English oaths, and with self- 
respect enough to respect their betters — I would 
rather have them such, I say, than snivelling, rant- 
ing Nonconformists, prating about their souls and 
showing the whites of their eyes when they hear 
that an educated man, who is a gentleman first and 
a parson afterwards, follows the hounds, relishes 
a main in the cockpit, and a rubber of whist in the 
rectory parlour and preaches the gospel of fair play 
for ten minutes in his pulpit, and the rest of the 
twenty-four hours out of it.” 

“ And I, Mr. Rodney, would rather hear of the 
saving of a sinner’s soul by a Nonconformist ranter, 
Churchman though I be, than see the whole nation 
living in comfortable forgetfulness of God.” 

Parson Rodney laughed. 

“ I will give you another year of riding to and 
fro and telling the peasantry that they have souls,” 
he said. “ You will not make us a nation of spirit- 
ual hypochondriacs, Mr. Wesley. For a while 
people will fancy that there is something the matter 
with them, and you’ll hear a deal of groaning and 
moaning at your services ; but when the novelty of 
the thing is gone, they will cease to talk of their 
complaints. Englishmen are stronger in their 
bodies than in their souls, and the weaker element 
will go to the wall, and your legs will be crushed 


178 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


against that same wall by the asses you are riding. 
Why, already I know that you have suffered a 
bruise or two, through the shambling of that ass 
whose name is Pritchard. The unprofitable 
prophet Pritchard. A prophet? Well, ’tis not the 
first time that an ass thought himself a prophet, 
and began to talk insolently to his master. But 
Balaam’s animal was a hand or two higher than his 
brother Pritchard ; when he began to talk he proved 
himself no ass, but the moment the other opens his 
mouth, he stands condemned. Lay on him with 
your staff, Mr. Wesley; he has sought to make a fool 
of you without the excuse that there is an angel in 
your way. I have half a mind to give his hide a 
trouncing myself to-morrow, only I could not do 
so without giving a cut at you, who are, just now, 
holding on by his tail, hoping to hold him back in 
his fallow, and, believe me, sir, I respect you with 
all my heart, and envy your zeal. Good-day to you, 
Mr. Wesley; I hope I may live to see you in good 
living yet; if you worry to a sufficient degree the 
powers that be, they will assuredly make you a 
Dean, hoping that in a Cathedral Close, where 
everything slumbers, you will fold your hands and 
sleep comfortably like the rest. I doubt if you 
would, sir. But meantime if you will come to my 
humble rectory this evening, I can promise you a 
rubber with a good partner, and a bottle of Bor- 
deaux that the King of France might envy, but that 
has paid no duty to the King of England.” 

“ I thank you for your invitation, sir ; but you 
know that I cannot accept it.” 

“ I feared as much, sir. But never mind, I hope 
that I shall live until you are compelled to accept 
my offer of hospitality to you as my Bishop.” 

He waved his hand, and gave his horse, who had 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 179 


never heard his master talk for so long a time at a 
stretch and whose impatience had for some time 
given way to astonishment, a touch with the spur. 
Wesley watched him make a beautiful jump over 
the gate that led into the park, beyond which the 
rectory nestled on the side of a hill among its 
orchards. 

He turned with a sigh to the cliff path leading be- 
yond the village to where Mr. Hartwell’s house 
stood, separated from the beach only by a wall of 
crags, and a few rows of weather-beaten trees, all 
stretching rather emaciated arms inland. 


CHAPTER XVI 


Wesley had preached under varying conditions 
in different parts of England, but never under such 
as prevailed on this Sunday, when he set out in the 
early morning with his friend, Mr. Hartwell, for 
the pulpit among the crags which he had occupied 
several times during his previous stay at Porthawn. 

When he set out from the Hartwells’ house the 
grey sea-mist, which had been rolling round the 
coast and through the valley of the Lana for several 
days past, was as thick as a fog. It was dense and 
confusing to one who faced it for the first time. It 
was so finely grey that one seemed to see through it 
at first, and boldly plunged into its depths ; but the 
instant that one did so, its folds closed over one as 
the dense waters of the sea do over a diver, and one 
was lost. Before one had recovered, one had the 
feeling of being smothered in a billow of grey gauze, 
smooth as silk that has been dipped in milk, and 
gasped within the windings of its folds. It was 
chilly, with the taste of the salt sea in its moisture. 
It took the heart out of one. 

“ This is nothing, sir,” said Mr. Hartwell. “ Lay 
your hand upon my arm and you will have no 
trouble: I could find my way along our cliffs 
through the thickest weather. I have been put to 
the test before now.” 

“ I am not thinking so much of ourselves as of 
our friends whom we expect to meet us in the val- 
ley,” said Wesley. “ How, think you, will they be 
able to find their way under such conditions? ” 

“ I do not assume that this mist is more than a 
180 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 181 


temporary thing — it comes from the sea well-nigh 
every Summer morn, but perishes as it rolls over 
the cliffs,” said Mr. Hartwell. 

“ It was clinging to the ridges of the valley slopes 
when I rode through, almost at noon yesterday,” 
said Wesley. 

“ Stragglers from the general army that we have 
to encounter here,” said the other. “When the 
phalanx of sea-mist rolls inland, it leaves its tat- 
tered remnants of camp followers straggling in its 
wake. I believe that when we reach the place we 
shall find ourselves bathed in sunshine.” 

“ May your surmise prove correct! ” said Wesley. 

And so they started breaking into the mist, feel- 
ing its salt touch upon their faces and hearing the 
sound of the waves breaking on the beach below 
them. It was curiously hollow, and every now and 
then amid the noise of the nearer waves, there came 
the deep boom from the distant caves, and the sob 
of the waters that were choked in the narrow pas- 
sage between the cliffs and the shoreward limits 
of the Dog’s Teeth. 

They had not gone more than half a mile along 
the track that led to the pack horse road when they 
heard the sound of voices, near at hand, with a faint 
and still fainter far-off hail. The next moment 
they almost ran into a mixed party of travellers on 
the same track. 

Mr. Hartwell was acquainted with some of them. 
They came from a hamlet high up in the valley a 
mile from Ruthallion. 

“ We are bound for the preaching,” said one of 
them. “ What a wandering we have had for the 
past two hours! We lost our way twice and only 
recovered ourselves when we gained the horse 
road.” 


182 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ We are going to the preaching also,” said Mr. 
Hartwell. 

“ How then does it come that we meet you in- 
stead of overtaking you? ” asked the other. 

There was a silence. The halloa in the distance 
became fainter. 

“ One of us must be wrong,” said Wesley. 

“We don’t match our knowledge against Mr. 
Hartwell’s,” said the spokesman of the strangers. 

“ I am confident that I know the way,” said Mr. 
Hartwell. “ I only left the main track once, and 
that was to cut off the round at Stepney’s Gap.” 

“ On we go then, with blessings on your head, 
sir,” said the other man. “ Friends, where should 
we ha’ landed ourselves if we had fallen short of 
our luck in coming right on Mr. Hartwell? Would 
we not do kindly to give a halloa or twain to help 
those poor hearts that may be wandering wild? ” 
he added, pointing in the direction whence the hail 
seemed to come. 

“ Ay, ’twould be but kind,” said an old man of 
the party. “ Oh, ’tis a dread and grisly mishap to 
be wandering wild in an unknown country.” 

Forthwith the younger ones sent out answering 
hails to the halloas that came to them. But when 
the next sounds reached their ears like echoes of 
their own shouts, it seemed that they came from 
quite another quarter. 

“ I could ha’ taken my davy that the lost ones was 
off another point o’ the compass,” said the old 
man. 

“ No, Comyn,” said another. “ No, my man, they 
came from thither.” 

He pointed straight in front of him. 

“ From where we stand that should be the Gap,” 
said Mr. Hartwell. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 183 


“ A special comfortable place to be wandering 
wild in is the Gap, for if you walk straight on it 
carries you to the mighty ocean, and if you walk 
back you will reach your own home safe, if it be 
in that direction,” said the old man with emphasis. 

“Was this mist far up the valley?” Wesley en- 
quired. 

“ Not more than a league, sir,” replied the old 
man. “ ’Twas a sunlit morn when we made our 
start, and then it came down on us like a ship in 
full sail. There goes another hail, and, as I said, 
it comes from behind us. Is there one of us that 
has a clear throat. ’Kish Trevanna, you was a 
gallery choir singer in your youth, have you any 
sound metallic notes left that you could cheer up 
the lost ones withal? Come, goodman, be not over 
shy. Is this a time to be genteel when a parson’s 
of the company, waiting to help and succour the 
vague wanderers? ” 

“ The call is for thee, Loveday, for didst not fol- 
low the hounds oft when there was brisk work in 
Squire’s coverts? ” said the man to whom the appeal 
was made. 

“We must hasten onward,” said Mr. Hartwell, 
making a start. “ ’Tis most like that we are over- 
taking whomsoever it be that was shouting a hail. 
Forward, friends, and feel your way to the pack- 
horse road.” 

The whole party began to move, Mr. Hartwell and 
Wesley leading, and before they had proceeded for 
more than two hundred yards they heard the sound 
of talking just ahead of them, and the next moment 
a group of men loomed through the mist. Friends 
were also in the new party. 

“ Were you them that sang out? ” asked one of 
them. 


184 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Only in answer to your hail ; we be no cravens, 
but always ready to help poor wanderers,” replied 
the talkative old man. 

“ We did not sound a note before w T e heard a 
hail,” said the questioner in the new party. u We 
have not strayed yet, being bound for the preach- 
ing.” 

“Have you been on the horse road?” asked 
Hartwell. 

“ The horse road? Why, sir, the horse road lies 
down the way that you came,” said the other. 

“ Surely not, my friend. How could we have 
missed it? ” said Hartwell. 

“ If ’twasn’t for the fog I could walk as steady 
for it as a mule,” said the old man. “ Ay, friends, 
as any mule under a pack saddle, for I have trav- 
ersed valley and cleft an hundred times in the old 
days, being well known as a wild youth, asking 
your pardon for talking so secular when a parson 
is by. I am loath to boast, but there was never 
a wilder youth in three parishes, Captain Hart- 
well.” 

(Mr. Hartwell had once been the captain of a 
mine.) 

“ Surely we should be guided by the sound of the 
sea,” said Wesley. “ A brief while ago I heard the 
boom of waters into one of the caves. If we listen 
closely we should learn if the sound is more distinct 
and thereby gather if we are approaching that part 
of the cliff or receding from it.” 

“ Book-learning is a great help at times, but ’tis 
a snare in a streaming fog, or in such times of snow 
as we were wont to have in the hard years before 
the Queen died in her gorgeous palace,” remarked 
the patriarch. 

“ One at a time, grandfather,” said a man who 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 185 


had arrived with the last party. “ There’s not 
space enough for you and the ocean on a morn like 
this. Hark to the sea.” 

They stood together listening, but now, through 
one of the mysteries of a fog, not a sound from the 
sea reached them. They might have been miles 
inland. 

“ I have been baffled by a fog before now,” said 
a shepherd. “ Have followed the bleat of an ewe 
for a mile over the hills, and lo, the silly beast had 
never left her Iamb, and w T hen I was just over her 
she sounded the faintest.” 

“ Time is passing ; should we not make a move 
in some direction? ” said Wesley. “ Surely, my 
friends, we must shortly come upon some landmark 
that will tell us our position in a moment.” 

“ I cannot believe that in trying to cut off the 
mile for the Gap I went grossly astray,” said Mr. 
Hartwell. “ I am for marching straight on.” 

“ Straight on we march and leave the guidance to 
Heaven,” said Wesley. 

On they went, Wesley marvelling how it was that 
men who should have known every inch of the way 
blindfold, having been on it almost daily all their 
lives, could be so baffled by a mist. To be sure Mr. 
Hartwell had forsaken the track at one place, but 
was it likely that he had got upon a different one 
when he had made his detour to cut off a mile of 
their journey. 

On they walked, however, their party numbering 
fourteen jnen, and then all of a sudden the voice 
of the sea came upon them, and at the same moment 
they almost stepped over the steep brink of a little 
chasm. 

“ What is this? ” cried Hartwell. “ As I live ’tis 
Gosney hollow, and we are scarcely half a mile from 


186 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


my house! We have walked a good mile back on 
our steps.” 

“ Did not I tell you how I followed the ewe? ” 
said the shepherd. “ ’Tis for all the world the same 
tale. Sore baffling thing is a sea-mist.” 

“ The valley will be full o ? lost men and women 
this day,” remarked the old man. 

There is no condition of life so favourable to the 
growth of despondency as that which prevails in a 
fog. The most sanguine are filled with despair 
when they find that their own senses, to which they 
have trusted for guidance and protection, are de- 
feated. The wanderers on this Sunday morning 
stood draped by the fog, feeling a sense of defeat. 
No one made a suggestion. Everyone seemed to 
feel that it would be useless to make the attempt to 
proceed to the crags where the preaching was to be 
held. 

“ Think you, Mr. Wesley, that this state of 
weather is the work of the Fiend himself? ” asked 
the talkative old man. “ I know *tis a busy ques- 
tion with professing Christians, as well as honest 
Churchmen — this one that pertains to the weather. 
Stands to reason, for say I have a turnip crop com- 
ing on and so holds out for a wet month or two, 
while a neighbour may look for sunshine to ripen 
his grain. Now if so be that the days are shiny 
my turnips get the rot, and who is to blame a weak 
man for saying that the Foul Fiend had a hand in 
prolonging the shine; but what saith my neigh- 
bour? ” 

“ Hither comes another covey of wandering 
partridges,” said one of the first party, as the sound 
of voices near at hand was heard. 

“ Now, for myself, I hold that ’tis scriptural nat- 
ural to say that aught in the matter that pertains 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 187 


to the smoke of the Pit is the Devil’s own work, and 
if such a fog as this comes not straight out the 
main flue of ” 

The old man’s fluency was interrupted by the 
arrival of the new party, Nelly Polwhele and her 
father. 

“ You are just setting out for the preaching, I 
suppose ; so we are not so late as we feared,” cried 
the girl. “ Still, though we shall certainly not be 
late for the preaching, however far behind we may 
be, we would do well to haste.” 

Wesley surely felt less despondent at the cheery 
greeting of the girl. He laughed, saying : 

“ ’Tis all very well to cry ‘ Haste,’ child; know 
that it has taken us a whole hour to get so far.” 

“ Is’t possible that you have been out for an hour, 
sir? ” she cried. “ Surely some man of you was 
provident to carry with him a compass on such a 
morn as this?” 

“ You speak too fast, maid; book-learning has 
made thee talkative; a mariner’s compass is for 
the mariners — it will not work on dry land,” said 
the old man. 

“ Mine is one of the sort that was discovered 
since your sensible days, friend — ay, as long agone 
as that; it works on land as well as on sea. If a 
bumpkin stands i’ the north its finger will point 
dead to him. Wouldst like to test it thyself? ” 
said Nelly’s father. Before the old man had quite 
grasped his sarcasm, though it was scarcely wanting 
in breadth, he had turned to Mr. Hartwell, display- 
ing a boat’s compass in its wooden box. 

“ ’Twas Nelly bade me carry it with us,” he said. 
“ I worked out all the bearings o’ the locality before 
we started, and I can make the Red Tor as easy as 
I could steer to any unseen place on the lonely 


188 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


ocean. Here we be, sir; west sou’west to the 
Gap, track or no track ; then west and by nor’- 
west a little northerly to the lift o’ the cliff, thence 
south-half-east to the Red Tor. Up wi’ your 
grapples, friends, we’ll be there before the sermon 
has begun or even sooner if we step out.” 

Wesley, and indeed all of the party except per- 
haps the pessimistic old man, whose garrulity had 
suffered a check, felt more cheerful. Hartwell 
clapped Polwhele on the back, saying: 

“ You are the man we were waiting for. On- 
ward, pilot; we shall reach the Tor in good time, 
despite our false start and the delay it made to us.” 

They started along the track, Polwhele at their 
head, and Wesley with Mr. Hartwell and Nelly 
immediately behind him. 

“ There’s a whole sermon in this, child,” said the 
preacher. 

“ A whole sermon, sir? ” said she. 

“ There should be only one sermon preached by 
man to men, and this is it,” said Wesley. “ The 
poor wandering ones standing on a narrow cause- 
way, with danger on every side, and the grey mist 
of doubt in the air. The sense of being lost — 
mark that, dear child, — and then the coming of the 
good Pilot, and a complete faith in following Him 
into the place of safety which we all seek. There 
is no sermon worth the preaching save only this.” 

On they went, Polwhele calling out the bearings 
every now and again, and as they proceeded they 
came upon several other travellers, more or less 
forlorn — all were hoping to reach the Red Tor in 
time; so that before the abrupt turn was made 
from the pack-horse track, there was quite a little 
procession on the way. 

Never had Wesley had such an experience as this. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 189 


Out from the folds of the impenetrable mist that 
rolled through the hollows of the low mounds that 
formed that natural amphitheatre, came the sound 
of many voices, and the effect was strange, for one 
could not even see that a mass of people was as- 
sembled there. The hum that the newcomers heard 
when still some distance away became louder as 
they approached, and soon they were able to dis- 
tinguish words and phrases — men calling aloud to 
men — some who had strayed from the friends were 
moving about calling their names, and occasionally 
singing out a hail in the forlorn hope of their voices 
being recognised; then there came the distressed 
wail of a woman who had got separated from her 
party, and with the laughter of a group who had got 
reunited after many wanderings. There was no 
lack of sounds, but no shape of men or women 
could be distinguished in the mist, until Wesley 
and his party were among them. And even then 
the dimly seen shapes had suggestions of the unreal 
about them. Some would loom larger than human 
for a few moments, and then vanish suddenly. 
Others seemed grotesquely transfigured in the mist 
as if they had enwrapped themselves in a disguise 
of sackcloth. They seemed not to be flesh and 
blood, but only shadows. Coming suddenly upon 
them, one felt that one had wandered to another 
world — a region of restless shadows. 

How was any man to preach to such a congrega- 
tion? How was a preacher to put force into his 
words, when failing to see the people before him? 

When Wesley found himself on the eminence 
where he had spoken to the multitude on his first 
coming to Cornwall, and several times later, he 
looked down in front of him and saw nothing ex- 
cept the fine gauze of the grey clouds that rolled 


190 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


around the rocks. He stood there feeling that he 
was the only living being in a world that was 
strange to him. He thought of the poet who had 
gone to the place of departed spirits, and realised 
his awful isolation. How was he to speak words of 
life to this spectral host? 

He had never known what fear was even when 
he had faced a maddened crowd bent upon the most 
strenuous opposition to his preaching: he had 
simply paid no attention to them, and the sound of 
his voice had held them back from him and. their 
opposition had become parched. But now T he felt 
something akin to terror. Who was he that he 
should make this attempt to do what no man had 
ever done before? 

He fell upon his knees and prayed aloud. Light 
— Light — Light — that was the subject of his 
prayer. He was there with the people who had 
walked in darkness — he had walked with them, 
and now they were in the presence of the One who 
had said “ Let there be Light.” He prayed that 
the Light of the World might appear to them at 
that time — the Light that shineth through the dark- 
ness that comprehended Him not. He prayed for 
light to understand the Light, as the poet had done 
out of the darkness of his blindness. 

“ So much the rather. Thou Celestial Light, 

Shine inward and the mind through her way 
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mists from thence 
Purge and disperse that I may see and tell 
Of things invisible to mortal sight.” 

And after his prayer with closed eyes, he began to 
preach into that void, and his text was of the Light 
also. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 191 


It seemed to him that he was standing in front of 
a wall, trying to make his words pass through it. 
This was at first; a moment later he felt that he 
was speaking to a denser multitude than he had 
ever addressed before. The mist was before his 
eyes as a sea of sad grey faces waiting, earnest and 
anxious for the message of gladness which he was 
bringing them. His voice rose to heights of impres- 
siveness that it had never reached before. It clove 
a passage through the mist and fell upon the ears 
of the multitude whom he could not see, stirring 
them as they had never been stirred before, while 
he gave them his message of the Light. 

For close upon half an hour he spoke of the 
Light. He repeated the word — again and again he 
repeated it, and every time that it came from his 
lips it had the effect of a lightning flash. This was 
at first. He spoke in flashes of lightning, uttered 
from the midst of the cloud of a night of dense 
blackness ; and then he made a change. The storm 
that made fitful, fiercer illumination passed away, 
and after an interval the reiteration of the Light 
appeared again. But now it was the true Light — 
the light of dawn breaking over a sleeping world. 
It did not come in a flash to dazzle the eyes and 
then to make the darkness more dread; it moved 
gradually upward ; there was a flutter as of a dove’s 
wing over the distant hills, the tender feathers of 
the dawn floated through the air, and fell upon the 
Eastern Sea, quivering there; and even while one* 
watched them wondering, out of the tremulous 
spaces of the sky a silver, silken thread was spread 
where the heaven and the waters met — it broad- 
ened and became a cincture of pearls, and then the 
thread that bound it broke, and the pearls were 
scattered, flying up to the sky and falling over all 


192 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


the waters in beautiful confusion; and before the 
world had quite awakened, the Day itself gave signs 
of hastening to gather up the pearls of Dawn. The 
Day’s gold-sandalled feet were nigh — they were 
shining on the sea’s brim, and lo! the East was 
bright with gold. Men cried, “Why do those feet 
tarry? ” But even while they spoke, the wonder of 
the Morn had come upon them. Flinging down his 
mantle upon the mountains over which he had 
stepped — a drapery of translucent lawn, the splen- 
dour of the new light sprung upward, lifting hands 
of blessing over the world, and men looked and saw 
each other’s faces, and knew that they were blest. 

And the wonder that he spoke of had come to 
pass. While the preacher had been describing the 
breaking light, the light had come. All unnoticed, 
the mist had been dissolving, and when he had 
spoken his last words the sunlight was bathing the 
preacher and the multitude who hung upon his 
words. The wonder that he told them of had taken 
place, and there did not seem to them anything of 
wonder about it. Only when he made his pause 
did they look into each other’s faces as men do when 
they have slept and the day has awakened them. 
Then with the sunlight about them, for them to 
drink great draughts that refreshed their souls, he 
spoke of the Light of the World — of the Dayspring 
from on High that had visited the world, and their 
souls were refreshed. 

And not one word had he said of all that he had 
meant to say — not one word of the man whom he 
had come so far to reprove. 

No one was conscious of the omission. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The day became sultry when the mist had cleared 
away, and by noon the heat was more oppressive 
than had been known all the Summer. Wesley was 
exhausted by the time he set out with Mr. Hartwell 
to return to the village. They needed no mariner’s 
compass now to tell them the way. 

They scarcely exchanged a word. They seemed 
to have forgotten the conditions under which they 
had gone forth in the early morning. A new 
world seemed to have been created since then — a 
world upon which the shadow of darkness could not 
fall for evermore. 

They had gone straight to the cliffs, hoping for 
a breath of air from the sea to refresh them; but 
they were disappointed ; the air was motionless and 
the reflection of the sunlight from the waves was 
dazzling in its brilliancy. 

“ I should have thought that the very weight of 
this heavy atmosphere would make the sea like 
glass,” said Wesley, while they rested on the sum- 
mit of the cliff. “And yet there are waves such 
as I have never seen on this part of the coast unless 
when something akin to a gale was blowing.” 

“ I daresay there was a strong breeze blowing, 
though we did not feel it in the shelter of the hollow 
of the Tor,” said his companion. 

“ True ; it would require a strong wind to sweep 
away the mist so suddenly,” said Wesley. 

“ Ah, sir,” said the other, “ I did not think of a 
wind in that connection. Was it the fingers of the 

193 


194 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


wind, think you, that swept that thick veil aside, 
or was it the Hand that rent in twain the veil of the 
Temple? ” 

“ I am reproached, brother,” said Wesley. “ Let 
us give thanks unto God. May He give us grace 
to think of all things as coming from Him — whether 
they take the form of a mist which obscures His 
purpose, or the darkness of a tempest on which He 
rides. I know myself wanting in faith at all times 
— in that faith without reserve which a child has 
in his father. I confess that for a moment in the 
morning I had the same thought as that which Avas 
expressed by the old man who joined us : I thought 
it possible that that fog which threatened to frus- 
trate our walk had been sent by the Enemy. 
Should I have thought so if our work had been 
hindered in very truth? I dare not say no to that 
question. But now I know that it helped rather 
than obstructed, us.” 

“ There can be no doubt about that,” said Hart- 
well. “ For myself, I say that I was never so deeply 
impressed in my life as at that moment when I 
found myself looking at you ; you were speaking of 
the world awakening, and it seemed to me that I 
had been asleep — listening to the sound of your 
voice — the voice of a dream, and then I was full 
awake, I knew not how. I tell you, Mr. Wesley, 
I was not conscious of the change that was taking 
place — from darkness to light.” 

“Nor was I,” said Wesley. “My eyes were 
closed fast while I was preaching. I had closed 
them to shut out that incongruous picture of ob- 
scurity, while I thought of the picture of the break- 
ing of light; when I opened my eyes the picture 
that I had been striving to paint was before me. It 
was the Lord’s doing.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 195 


While they remained resting on the cliff the of- 
ficer of the Preventive men came upon them. He 
knew Hartwell, and had, when Wesley had been in 
the neighbourhood before, thanked him for the 
good influence his preaching had in checking the 
smuggling. 

He now greeted them cordially and enquired if 
they had come from the village, adding that he 
hoped the fishing boats had not suffered from the 
effects of the tide. 

“ We left the port early in the morning, and in 
the face of the mist. What is the matter with the 
tide? ” said Hartwell. 

“ You have not been on the beach? Why, ’tis a 
marvel, gentlemen/’ cried the officer. “ The like 
has not been seen since I took up my appointment 
in this neighbourhood — a tide so high that the caves 
are flooded to the roof. List, sirs; you can hear 
naught of the usual boom of the waters when the 
pressed air forces them back.” 

They listened, but although there was the usual 
noise of the waves breaking along the coast, the 
boom from the caves which had been heard at inter- 
vals through the mist was now silent. 

“ As a rule ’tis at high tide that the sound is 
loudest,” said Hartwell. 

“ That is so,” said the officer. “ The higher the 
water is, the more the air in the caves becomes 
pressed, and so the louder is the explosion. But 
this day the water has filled the caves to the roof, 
leaving no air in their depths to bellow. One of 
my men, on his patrol an hour ago, was overtaken 
by the tide at the foot of the cliffs at a place high 
above spring tide mark. He had to climb to safety. 
He did so only with difficulty. Had he been at 
Nithsaye, nothing would have saved him.” 


196 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ What, are Nitlisaye sands flooded? Impos- 
sible, cried Hartwell. 

“ Flooded up to Tor, sir. I tell you the thing is 
a marvel ! ” 

“ All the more so, since there is no wind to add 
to the force of the tide,” said Wesley. 

“ True, sir ; there was a strong breeze in the 
early morning that swept the sea-mist over the 
shore; but there has not been a capful since,” said 
the officer. 

“ But see the waves ! Are they the effects of the 
early wind, think you, sir? ” asked Wesley. 

“ Maybe ; but if so, this also is past my experi- 
ence of this coast, sir,” replied the man. “ But I 
allow that when I was sailing with Captain Hawke 
in the West Indies I knew of the waters of the 
Caribbean Sea being stirred up like this in the dead 
calm before a hurricane that sent us on our beam 
ends, and one of our squadron on to the Palisades 
Reef at Port Royal.” 

“ Do you fear for a hurricane at this time? ” 
asked Wesley. 

“ A gale, maybe ; but no such hurricane as wrecks 
the island it swoops down on in the Leewards, sir. 
Oh, a hurricane in very deed ! Our ship’s cutter — 
a thirty-foot boat swung in on the iron davits — and 
lashed down to iron stanchions on the deck — was 
whisked adrift as if it had been an autumn leaf. 
I say it went five hundred fathom through the air 
and no man saw it fall. I saw a road twenty foot 
wide shorn through the dense forest for five miles 
as clean as with a scythe, as you go to Spanish Town 
— a round dozen of planters’ houses and a stone 
church had once stood on that cutting. They were 
swept off, and not a stone of any one of them was 
ever found by mortal after. Oh, a hurricane, in- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 19T 


deed! We need expect naught like that, by the 
mercy of Heaven, gentlemen ; though I care not for 
the look of yon sun.” 

They glanced upwards. The sun had the aspect 
of being seen through a slight haze, which made it 
seem of a brazen red, large and with its orb all 
undefined. It looked more like the red fire of 
a huge lighted brazier than the round sun, and 
all around it there was the gleam as of moving 
flames. 

“ Looks unhealthy — is’t not so?” said the 
officer. 

“ There is a haze in the air ; but the heat is none 
the less,” said Hartwell. 

“ I like it not, sirs. This aspect of the sun is 
part and parcel of some disturbance of nature that 
we would do well to be prepared for,” said the 
officer, shaking his head ominously. 

“A disturbance of nature? What mean you? 
Have you been hearing of the fishing-boats that 
have been hauled up on the stones at the port for 
the past two days? Have you taken serious account 
of the foolishness of a man who calls himself a 
prophet ? ” asked Hartwell. 

The officer laughed. 

“ Oli, I have heard much talk of the Prophet 
Pritchard,” he said. “ But you surely do not 
reckon me as one of those poor wretches whom he 
has scared out of their lives by threatening them 
with the Day of Judgment to-morrow? Nay, sir; 
I placed my trust in a statement that begins with 
soundings, the direction of the wind and its force, 
the sail that is set, the last cast of the log, the bear- 
ings of certain landmarks, and the course that is 
being steered. My word for it, without such a pre- 
face, any statement is open to doubt.” 


198 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“And have you received such a statement in re- 
gard to your ‘ disturbance of nature/ sir? ” 

“ That I have, sirs. Our cutter was cruising 
about a league off shore two nights ago, light breeze 
from west-nor’-west, sail set; mainsail, foresail, 
jib, speed three knots. Hour, two bells in the 
morning, Master in charge on deck, watch, lar- 
board — names if necessary. Reports, night sultry, 
cloudless since second dog watch, attention called 
to sounds as of discharge of great guns in nor’- 
nor’west. Lasted some minutes, not continuous; 
followed by noise as of a huge wave breaking, or the 
fall of a cataract in same quarter. Took in jib, 
mainsail haul, stand by to lower gaff. No further 
sounds reported, but sea suddenly got up, though 
no change of wind, force or direction, and till four 
bells cutter sailed through waves choppy as if half 
a gale had been blowing. After four bells gradual 
calm. Nothing further to report till eight bells, 
when cutter, tacking east-nor’east, all sail set, 
gunner’s mate found in it a dead fish. Master re- 
ports quantity of dead fish floating around. Took 
five aboard — namely, hake two, rock codling one, 
turbot two, rock codling with tail damaged. That’s 
a statement we can trust, Mr. Hartwell. Yester- 
day it was supplemented by accounts brought by 
my men of the coast patrol, of quantities of dead 
fish washed ashore in various directions. And 
now comes this marvellous tide. Sirs, have 
not I some grounds for touching upon such a sub- 
ject as ‘ a great disturbance of nature ’? ” 

“ Ample, sir, ample,” said Wesley. “ Pray, does 
your West Indian experience justify you in coming 
to any conclusion in regard to these things?” 

“ I have heard of fish being killed by the action 
of a volcano beneath the sea,” said the officer. “ I 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 199 


have heard it said that all the Leeward Islands are 
volcanos, though only one was firing broadsides the 
year that I was with my Lord Hawke. ’Twas at 
Martinique which we took from the French. Even 
before the island came in sight, our sails were black 
with dust and our decks were strewn with cinders. 
But when we drew nigh to the island and saw the 
outburst of molten rocks flying up to the very sky 
itself — sir, I say to you that when a man has seen 
such a sight as that, he is not disposed to shudder 
at all that a foolish fellow who has never sailed 
further than the Bristol Channel may prate about 
the Day of Judgment.” 

“ And to your thinking, sir, an earthquake or 
some such convulsion of nature hath taken place 
at the bottom of our peaceful Channel? ” said 
Wesley. 

“ In my thinking, sir, yes. But I would not say 
that the convulsion was at the bottom of the Chan- 
nel; it may have been an hundred leagues in the 
Atlantic. And more is to come, sirs ; take my word 
for it, more is to come. Look at yonder sun; ’tis 
more ominous than ever. I shall look out for 
volcano dust in the next rain, and advise the near- 
est station eastward to warn all the fishing craft to 
make snug, and be ready for the worst. I should 
not be surprised to find that the tide is still rising, 
and so I wish you good-morning, sirs.” 

He took off his hat and resumed his patrol of the 
coast, 

“ This is a day of surprises,” said Wesley. 

“ The story of the fish is difficult to believe, in 
spite of the cocoon of particulars in which it is 
enclosed,” said Hartwell. “ The greatest marvel 
in a mariner’s life seems to me to be his imagination 
and his readiness of resource when it comes to a 


200 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


question of memory. A volcano mountain in our 
Channel ! ” 

“ Do not condemn the master of the revenue 
cutter too hastily,” said Wesley. “ His story cor- 
responds very nearly to that narrated to me yester- 
day by Polwhele.” 

“ Is’t possible? True, Polwhele was the only fish- 
erman who went out to the reef three nights ago,” 
said Hartwell. “And the strange sounds ” 

“ He heard them also — he thought that they came 
from a frigate discharging a broadside of car- 
ronades.” 

Hartwell was silent for some time. At last he 
said: 

“ I could wish that these mysterious happenings 
had come at some other time. Are you rested 
sufficiently in this place, sir? I am longing for a 
cool room, where I can think reasonably of all 
that I have seen and heard this day.” 

Wesley rose from the hollow where he had made 
his seat and walked slowly down the sloping path 
toward the village. But long before they had 
reached the place of his sojourning, he became 
aware of a scene of excitement in the distance. 
The double row of straggling cottages that con- 
stituted the village of Porthawn they had left in 
the morning standing far beyond the long and steep 
ridge of shingle, at the base of which the wrack of 
high water lay, was now close to the water’s edge. 
The little wharf alongside of which the fishing boats 
were accustomed to lie had been hauled up prac- 
tically to the very doors of the houses. Scores of 
men and women were engaged in the work of haul- 
ing them still higher, not by the machinery of the 
capstans — the capstans were apparently submerged 
— but by hawsers. The sound of the sailors’ 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 201 


“ Heave bo ! ” came to the ear of Wesley and his 
companion a few seconds after they had seen the 
bending to the haul of all the people who were 
clinging to the hawsers as flies upon a thread. The 
shore was dark with men running with gear- 
tackles with blocks, while others were labouring 
along under the weight of spars and masts that had 
been hastily outstepped. 

Mr. Hartwell was speechless with astonishment. 

“ It is indeed a day of wonder! ” exclaimed Wes- 
ley. “A high tide? Ay; but who could have be- 
lieved such an one possible? Should we not be do- 
ing well to lend them a hand in their emergency? ” 

He had to repeat his question before the other 
had recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to 
be able to reply. 

“ Such a tide ! Such a tide ! ” he muttered. 
“What can it mean? Lend a hand? Surely — 
surely! Every hand is needed there.” 

They were compelled to make a detour landward 
in order to reach the people, for the ordinary path 
was submerged, but they were soon in the midst of 
them, and bending to the work of hauling, until the 
drops fell from their faces, when the heavy boat at 
which they laboured had her bowsprit well-nigh 
touching the window of the nearest house. 

Wesley dropped upon a stone and wiped his fore- 
head, and some of the fishermen did the same, while 
others were loosing the tackles, in readiness to bind 
them on the next boat. 

Nelly Polwhele was kneeling beside him in an in- 
stant — her hair had become unfastened, for she had 
been working hard with the other women, and fell 
in strands down her back and over her shoulders. 
Her face was wet. 

“ Oh, sir ; this is overmuch for you ! ” she cried. 


202 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Far overmuch, after all that you have gone 
through since morning. Pray rest you in the shade. 
There is a jug of cider cooling in a pail of water 
fresh drawn from the well. You need refreshment.” 

He took her hand, smiling. 

“ I am refreshed, dear child,” he said. “ I am 
refreshed.” 

“ Why should that man be treated different from 
the rest of us; tell me that,” came the voice of a 
man who had been watching them, and now stepped 
hastily forward. Wesley saw that he was Bennet. 
“Is there a man in the village who doesn’t know that 
’tis John Wesley and his friends that has brought 
this visitation upon us? Was there anything like 
to this before he came with his new-fangled preach- 
ing, drawing down the wrath of Heaven upon such 
as have been fool enough to join themselves to him? 
Was there any of you, men, that thought with 
trembling limbs and sweating foreheads of the Day 
of Judgment until John Wesley turned the head of 
that poor man Pritchard, and made him blaspheme, 
wrapping himself in Wesley’s old cloak, and telling 
you that ’twas the mantle of a prophet? ” 

Nelly had risen to her feet before his last sen- 
tence was spoken, but a moment afterward she 
sprang to one side with a cry. She was just in time 
to avoid the charge of a man on horseback. But 
Bennet was not so fortunate. Before he was aware 
of a danger threatening him, he felt himself carried 
off his feet, a strong man’s hands grasping the 
collars of his coat, so that he was swung off the 
ground, dangling and scrawling like a puppet. 
Down the horse sprang into the water, until it was 
surging over the pommel of the saddle. Then, and 
only then, the rider loosed his hold, reining in his 
horse with one hand, while with the other he flung 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 203 

the man headforemost a couple of yards farther 
into the waves. 

“ The hound ! the hound ! that will cool his 
ardour ! ” cried Parson Rodney, backing his horse 
out of the w r ater, while the people above him roared, 
and the man, coming to the surface like a grampus, 
struck out for a part of the beach most remote from 
the place where he had stood. 

Wesley was on his feet and had already taken 
a step or two down the shingle, for Parson Rodney’s 
attitude suggested his intention of preventing the 
man from landing, when he saw that Rennet was a 
strong swimmer, and that he, too, had put the same 
interpretation upon the rider’s raising of his hunt- 
ing crop. 

“ Sir,” said Parson Rodney, bringing his drip- 
ping horse beside him, “ I grieve that any man in 
my parish should put such an affront upon you. 
Only so gross a wretch would have done so. Thank 
Heaven the fellow is not of Porthawm, nor a Cor- 
nishman at all. If you do not think that my simple 
rebuke has been enough, I am a Justice, and I 
promise you to send him to gaol for a month at next 
session.” 

“ Sir, you mean well by me,” said Wesley; “but 
I w T ould not that any human being were placed in 
jeopardy of his life on my account.” 

“ That is because you are overgentle, sir,” said 
Rodney. “ Thank Heaven, my fault does not lie in 
that direction.” 

“ Repent, repent, repent, while there is yet time ! 
In a few more hours Time shall be no more ! ” came 
a loud voice from the high ground above the bank. 

Everyone turned and saw there the figure of 
Richard Pritchard, standing barehead in the 
scorching sun, his hands upraised and his hair un- 


204 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


kept; and a curious nondescript garment made ap- 
parently of several sacks hastily stitched together, 
with no sleeves. On his feet he wore what looked 
like sandals — he had cut down the upper portion 
of his shoes, so that only the sole remained, and 
these were fastened to his feet by crossed pieces of 
tape. He was the prophet of the Bible illustration. 
It was plain that he had studied some such print 
and that he had determined that nothing should be 
lacking in his garb to make complete the part which 
he meant to play. 

Up again went the long, lean, bare arms, and 
again came the voice: 

“ O men of Porthawn, now is the accepted time, 
now is the Day of Salvation. Yet a few more hours 
and Time shall be no more. Repent, repent, re- 
pent, while ye have time.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


There could be no doubt about the depth of the 
impression which the strange figure and his unusual 
garb produced upon the people. 

There he stood on the high ground above the 
houses, the man who had prophesied the end of 
the world, while beneath them tumbled the waves 
of a sea where they had never seen sea water be- 
fore! The occurrence, being so far outside their 
experience, had about it the elements of the super- 
natural — the aspect of a miracle. Was this the 
beginning of the end of all? they asked themselves. 
To these people the daily ebb and flow of the tide, 
ever going on before their eyes, was the type of a 
regularity that nothing could change; and never 
once had the water been forced, even under the in- 
fluence of the strongest gale from the southwest, 
beyond the summit of the shingle-heap — never un- 
til this day. 

It was an awful thing that had come to pass be- 
fore their eyes, and while their brains were reeling 
beneath its contemplation there rang out that 
voice of warning. The man who had predicted an 
event that was not more supernatural in their eyes 
than the one which had come to their very feet, was 
there bidding them repent. 

But strange to say, there was not one among the 
people assembled there who made a motion — who 
cried out in conviction of the need for repentance, 
as hundreds had done upon every occasion of John 
Wesley’s preaching, although it had contained no 

205 


206 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


element that, in the judgment of an ordinary per- 
son, would appeal with such force to the emotions 
of the villagers as did the scene in which Pritchard 
now played a part. 

They remained unmoved — outwardly, however 
shrinking with terror some of them may have been. 
Perhaps it was they felt that the man had, in a way, 
threatened them physically, and they had a feeling 
that it would show cowardice on their part to be- 
tray their fear, or it may have been that, as was 
nearly always the case when a prophet came to a 
people, they attributed to the bearer of the mes- 
sages of the ill the responsibility for the ills which 
he foretold — however it may have been, the people 
only glanced up at the weird figure, and made no 
move. 

But the appearance of the man at that moment 
had the effect of making them forget the scene which 
had immediately preceded the sound of his voice. 
No one looked to see whether or not John Bennet 
had scrambled back to the beach or had gone under 
the waters. 

“ It is coming — it is coming : I hear the sound of 
the hoofs of the pale Horse — yonder is the red 
Horse spoken of by the prophet at Patmos, but the 
White Horse is champing his bit. I hear the clink 
of the steel, and Death is his rider. He cometh 
with fire and brimstone. Repent — repent — re- 
pent ! ” 

“ I have a mind to make the fellow repent of his 
impudence,” said Parson Rodney. “ The effrontery 
of the man trying to make me play a part in his 
quackery. I wonder how this water-finder would 
find the water if I were to give him the ducking I 
gave to the other? ” 

“ You would do wrong, sir,” said Wesley. “ But 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 207 


I feel that I have no need to tell yon so: your own 
good judgment tells you that yonder man is to be 
pitied rather than punished.” 

“ Oh, if that is the view you take of the matter, 
you may be sure that Fll not interfere,” cried the 
other. “ The fellow may quack or croak or crow 
for aught I care. ’Twas for you I was having 
thought. But Fve no intention of constituting my 
humble self your champion. I wish you well ; and 
I know that if the world gets over the strain of 
Monday, we shall never see you in our neighbour- 
hood again.” 

“ The elements shall melt with fervent heat. 
You feel it — you feel it on your faces to-day: I 
foretold it, and I was sent to cry unto all that have 
ears to hear, ‘ Repent — repent — repent ’ ! ” 

“ The fellow has got no better manner than a real 
prophet,” laughed Parson Rodney; but there was 
not much merriment in his laughter. “ I have a 
mind to have him brought before me as an incor- 
rigible rogue and vagabond,” he continued. “ An 
hour or twain in the stocks would make him think 
more civilly of the world. If he becomes bold 
enough to be offensive to you, Mr. Wesley, give me a 
hint of it, and I’ll promise you that I’ll make him 
see more fire and brimstone than he ever did in one 
of his ecstatic moods; and so good-day to you, 
sir.” 

He put his horse to a trot, and returned the 
salutes of the men who were standing idly watching 
Pritchard in his very real sackcloth. 

But he had scarcely ridden past them when he 
turned his horse and called out : 

“ Wherefore are you idle, good men? Do you 
mean to forsake the remainder of your smacks? ” 

A few of the fishermen looked at one another; 


208 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


they shook their heads ; one of them wiped his fore- 
head. 

“ ’Twill be all the same after Monday, Parson,” 
said that man. 

“ You parboiled lobster-grabber ! ” cried the Par- 
son. “ Do you mean to say that you have the ef- 
frontery to believe that addle-pate up there rather 
than a clergyman of the Church of England? Look 
at him. He’s not a man. ’Tis a poor cut torn from 
a child’s picture Bible that he is! Do you believe 
that the world would come to an end without your 
properly ordained clergyman giving you a hint of 
it? Go on with your work, if you are men. Repent? 
Ay, you’ll all repent when ’tis too late, if you fail to 
haul up your boats so that their backs get not 
broken on that ridge. If you feel that you must 
repent, do it hauling. And when you’ve done your 
work, come up to the Rectory and cool your throats 
with a jug of cider, cool from the cellar, mind.” 

“ There shall be no more sea,” came the voice of 
the man on the mound ; it was growing appreciably 
hoarser. 

“No more sea? ” shouted the parson. “ That’s 
an unlucky shot of yours, my addle-pated prophet; 
’tis too much sea that we be suffering from just 
here.” 

Wesley had not reseated himself. He put his 
hand upon Mr. Hartwell’s- arm. The latter under- 
stood what he meant. They walked away together. 

“ I have seen nothing sadder for years,” said Wes- 
ley. “ I have been asking myself if I am to blame. 
Should not I have been more careful in regard to 
that unhappy man? ” 

“ If blame is to be attached to any it is to be 
attached to those who recommended the man to you, 
and I was among them,” said Hartwell. “ I recall 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 209 

how you were not disposed to accept him into our 
fellowship by reason of his work with the divining 
rod ; but we persuaded you against your judgment. 
I, for one, shall never forgive myself.” 

“ Was ever aught so saddening as that travesty 
of the most solemn event? ” said Wesley. “ And 
then the spectacle of that well-meaning but ill- 
balanced man ! A clergyman of our Church — you 
saw him turn to mock the wretch? He made a jest 
upon the line that has never failed to send a thrill 
through me: ‘No more sea.’ Shocking — shocking! 
. . . Friend, I came hither with the full intention of 
administering a rebuke to Pritchard — of openly let- 
ting it be understood that we discountenanced him. 
But I did not do so to-day, and I am glad of it. 
However vain the man may be — however injuriously 
he may affect our aims among the people — I am 
still glad that I was turned away from saying a 
word against him.” 

Mr. Hartwell was too practical a man to look at 
the matter in the same light. But he said nothing 
further about Pritchard. When he spoke, which 
he did after a time, it was about Bennet. He asked 
Wesley if he could guess why the man had spoken 
to him so bitterly. Why should the man bear him 
a grudge? 

Wesley mentioned that Bennet had come upon 
him when he was walking with Polwhele’s daughter 
from the Mill. 

“ Ah, that is the form of his madness — he becomes 
insanely jealous of anyone whom he sees near that 
girl. But one might have thought that you at least 
— oh, absurdity could go no further ! But a jealous 
man is a madman; he is incapable of looking at 
even the most ordinary incident except through 
green glasses. You are opposed to clergymen 


210 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


marrying, are you not, Mr. Wesley? I have heard 
of your book ” 

“ I wrote as I was persuaded at that time,” 
replied Wesley. “ But more recently — I am not 
confident that I did not make a mistake in my con- 
clusions. I am not sure that it is good for a man 
to be alone ; and a clergyman, of all men, needs the 
sympathy — the sweet and humane companionship 
of a woman.” 

“ True, sir ; but if a clergymen makes a mistake 
in his choice of a wife, there can be no question that 
his influence declines; and so many men of your 
cloth wreck themselves on the quicksand of matri- 
mony. I daresay that ’tis your own experience of 
this that keeps you single, though you may have 
modified your original views on the subject. 
Strange, is’t not, that we should find ourselves dis- 
cussing such a point at this time? But this seems 
to be the season of strange things, and ’twould be 
the greatest marvel of all if we ourselves were not 
affected. Is it the terrible heat, think you, that 
has touched the heads of those two men? ” 

“ I scarce know what I should think,” said Wes- 
ley. “ The case of Pritchard is the more remark- 
able. Only now it occurred to me that there may be 
a strange affinity between the abnormal in nature 
and the mind of such a man as he. ’Twould be idle 
to contend that he has not been able as a rule to say 
where water is to be found on sinking a shaft; I 
have heard several persons testify to his skill in 
this particular — if it may be called skill. Does 
not his possession of this power then suggest that 
he may be so constituted that his senses may be sus- 
ceptible of certain vague suggestions which emanate 
from the earth, just as some people catch ague — I 
have known of such in Georgia — when in the neigh- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 211 


bourliood of a swamp, while others remain quite 
unaffected in health?” 

“ That is going too far for me, sir,” said Hartwell. 
“ I do not need to resort to anything more difficult 
to understand than vanity to enable me to under- 
stand how Pritchard has changed. The fellow’s 
head has been turned — that’s all.” 

“That explanation doth not wholly satisfy me,” 
said Wesley. “ I think that we have at least some 
proof that he was sensible of something abnormal 
in Nature, and this sensibility acting upon his brain 
disposed him to take a distorted view of the thing. 
His instinct in this matter may have been accurate; 
but his head was weak. He receives an impression 
of something strange, and forthwith he begins to 
talk of the Day of Judgment, and his foolish vanity 
induces him to think of himself as a prophet. The 
Preventive officer thinks that there hath been an 
earthquake. Now there can, I think, be no doubt 
that Pritchard was sensible of its coming; Pol- 
whele told you yesterday that he had predicted an 
earthquake in the sea, although it seemed that his 
illiteracy was accountable for this: and now there 
comes this remarkable tide — the highest tide that 
the memory of man has known.” 

“ You have plainly been giving the case of Pritch- 
ard much of your attention,” said Hartwell ; “ but 
I pray you to recall his account of the vision which 
he said came to him when he fell into that trance. 
’Twas just the opposite to a high tide — ’twas such 
an ebbing of the water as left bare the carcase of 
the East Indiaman that went ashore on the Dog’s 
Teeth reef forty years ago.” 

“ True ; but to my way of thinking it matters not 
whether ’twas a prodigious ebb or a prodigious flow 
that he talked of so long as he was feeling the im- 


212 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


pression of the unusual — of the extraordinary. 
Mind you, I am only throwing out a hint of a matter 
that may become, if approached in a proper spirit, 
a worthy subject for sober philosophical thought. 
God forbid that I should take it upon me to say at 
this moment that the power shown by that man is 
from the Enemy of mankind, albeit I have at times 
found myself thinking that it could come from no 
other source.” 

“ You are too lenient, I fear, Mr. Wesley. For 
myself, I believe simply that the man’s head has 
been turned. Is’t not certain that a devil enters 
into such men as are mad, and have we not proof 
that witches and warlocks have sometimes the per- 
verted gift of prophecy, through the power of their 
master, the Old Devil? ” 

“ I cannot gainsay it, my brother, and it is be- 
cause of this you say, that I am greatly perplexed.” 

They had been walking very slowly, for the heat 
of the day seemed to have increased, and they were 
both greatly exhausted. Before entering Mr. Hart- 
well’s house they stood for a short time looking 
seaward. There, as before, the waves danced under 
the rays of the sun, although not a breath of air 
stirred between the sea and the sky. The canopy 
of the heaven was blue, but it suggested the blue 
of hard steel rather than that of the transparent 
sapphire or that of the soft mass of a bed of for- 
get-me-nots, or of the canopy of clematis which 
clambered over the porch. 

The sun that glared down from the supreme 
height was like to no other sun they had ever seen. 
The haze on its disc, to which the Preventive 
officer had drawn their attention an hour earlier, 
had been slowly growing in the meantime, until 
now it was equal to four diameters of the orb 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 213 


itself, and it was so permeated with the rays that 
it seemed part of the sun itself. There that mighty 
furnace seethed with intolerable fire, and so singu- 
lar was the haze that one, glancing for a moment 
upward with hand on forehead, seemed to see the 
huge tongues of flame that burst forth now and 
again as they do beneath a copper cauldron on the 
furnace of the artificer. 

But this was not all, for at a considerable dis- 
tance from the molten mass, which had the sun for 
its core, there was a wide ring apparently of fire. 
Though dull as copper for the most part, yet at 
times there was a glow as of living and not merely 
reflected flame, at parts of the brazen circle, and 
flashes seemed to go from the sun to this cincture, 
conveying the impression of an enormous shield, 
having the sun as the central boss of shining brass, 
on which fiery darts were striking, flying off again 
to the brass binding of the targe. 

“ Another marvel!” said Wesley; “but I have 
seen the like more than once before. Once ? twas 
on the Atlantic, and the master of our ship, who 
was a mariner of experience, told me that that 
outer circle was due to the sun shining through 
particles of moisture. Hold up a candle in the 
mist and you have the same thing.” 

“ I myself have seen it more than once; ’tis not 
a marvel, though it has appeared on a day of mar- 
vels,” said Hartwell; and forthwith they entered 
the house. 

They were both greatly exhausted, the fact being 
that before setting out for the preaching in the 
early morning they had taken no more than a glass 
of milk and a piece of bread, and during the seven 
hours that had elapsed they had tasted nothing, 
though the day had been a most exhausting one. 


214 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


In a very few minutes the cold dinner, with the 
salad, which had been in readiness for their return, 
found them grateful; and after partaking of it 
Wesley retired to his room. 

He threw himself upon a couch that stood under 
the window ; a group of trees, though birch and not 
very bosky, grew so close to the window that they 
had made something of a shade to the room since 
morning, so that it was the coolest in the house. It 
was probably this sense of coolness that refreshed 
him so far as to place him within the power of 
sleep. He had thought it impossible when he en- 
tered the house that he should be able to find such 
a relief, exhausted as he had been. But now he 
had scarcely put his head on the pillow before he 
was asleep. 

Several hours had passed before he opened his 
eyes again. He was conscious that a great change 
of some sort, that he could not at once define, had 
taken place. The room was in shadow where be- 
fore it had been lighted by flecks of sunshine, but 
this was not the change which appealed to him with 
striking force; nor was it the sense of being re- 
freshed, of which he was now aware. There was a 
curious silence in the w r orld — the change had some- 
thing to do with the silence. He felt as he had 
done in the parlour of Ruthallion Mill when he 
had been talking to the miller and the machinery 
had suddenly stopped for the breakfast hour. That 
was his half-awakened thought. 

The next moment he was fully awake, and he 
knew what had happened: when he had fallen 
asleep the sound of the waves had been in his ears 
without cessation, and now the sea was silent. 

He thought that he had never before been in such 
a silence. It seemed strange, mysterious, full of 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 215 

awful suggestions. It seemed to his vivid imagina- 
tion that the world, which a short time before had 
been full of life, had suddenly swooned away. The 
hush was the hush of death. The silence was the 
silence of the tomb. “ ? Tis thus,” he thought, 
“ that a man awakens after death — in a place of 
awful silences.” 

And then he felt as if all the men in the world 
had been cut off in a moment, leaving him the only 
man alive. 

It continued unbroken while he lay there. It 
became a nightmare silence — an awful palpable 
thing like a Sphinx — a blank dumbness — a be- 
numbing of all Nature — a sealing up of all the 
world as in the hard bondage of an everlasting 
Winter. 

He sprang from his couch unable to endure the 
silence any longer. He went to the window and 
looked out, expecting to see the flat unruffled sur- 
face of the channel, where the numberless waves 
had lately been, sparkling with intolerable bril- 
liance, and every wave sending its voice into the 
air to join the myriad-voiced chorus that the sea 
made. 

He looked out and started back; then he drew 
up the blind and stared out in amazement, for 
where the sea had been there was now no sea. 

He threw open the window and looked out. Far 
away in the utter distance he saw what seemed 
like a band of glittering crimson on the horizon. 
Looking further round and to the west he saw that 
the sun was more than halfway down the slope 
of the heavens in that quarter and it was of the 
darkest crimson in colour — large, but no longer 
fiery. 

Then there came a murmur to his ears — the mur- 


216 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


mur of a multitude of people ; and above this sound 
came a hoarse, monotonous voice, crying : 

u I heard one say to me : ‘ There shall be no sea 
— there shall be no more sea ’ ; and the sun shall 
be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, 
before the great and terrible Day of the Lord. 
Repent — repent — repent ! ” 

Far away he could see the figure of the man. He 
stood on the summit of the cliff beyond the path, 
and, facing the sinking sun, he was crimson from 
head to foot. Seen at such a distance and in that 
light he looked an imposing figure — a figure that 
appealed to the imagination, and not lacking in 
those elements which for ages have been associated 
with the appearance of a fearless prophet uplifting 
a lean right arm and crying “ Thus saith the Lord.” 
Wesley listened and heard his cry: 

“ There shall be no more sea ! Repent — repent 
— repent ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX 


“What think you now, sir?” Hartwell asked 
of Wesley when the latter had descended the stairs 
and entered the little parlour of the house. 

“ I am too greatly amazed to think,” replied 
Wesley. “But since you put thinking into my 
head, I would ask you if you think it unnatural 
that a great ebb should follow an unusually high 
tide? ” 

It was plain that Hartwell was greatly per- 
turbed. 

“ Unnatural? Why, has not everything that 
has happened for the past three days been un- 
natural ? ” he cried. “ Sir, I am, I thank God, a 
level-headed man. I have seen some strange things 
in my life, both in the mines and when seafaring; 
I thought that naught could happen to startle me, 
but I confess that this last — I tell you, sir, that I 
feel now as if I were in the midst of a dream. My 
voice sounds strange to myself; it seems to come 
from someone apart from me — nay, rather from my- 
self, but outside myself.” 

“ ’Tis the effect of the heat, dear friend,” said 
Wesley. “ You should have slept as I did.” 

“ I did sleep, sir ; what I have been asking myself 
is ‘ Am I yet awake? ’ I have had dreams before 
like to this one — dreams of watching the sea and 
other established things that convey to us all 
ideas of permanence and regularity, melting away 
before my very eyes — one dread vision showed me 
Greta Cliff crumbling away like a child’s mound 

217 


218 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


built on the sand — crumbling away into the sea, 
and then the sea began to ebb and soon was on the 
horizon. Now, I have been asking myself if I am 
in the midst of that same dream again. Can it be 
possible? Can it be possible?” 

He clapped his hand to his forehead and hastened 
to the window, whence he looked out. Almost im- 
mediately he returned to Wesley, saying: 

“ I pray you to inform me, sir, if this is the 
truth or a dream — is it really the case that the sea 
has ebbed so that there is naught left of it? ” 

“ You are awake, my brother,” said Wesley, 
“ and ’tis true that the sea hath ebbed strangely ; 
but from the upper windows ? tis possible to see a 
broad band of it in the distance. I beseech of you 
to lie down on your bed and compose yourself. 
This day has tried you greatly.” 

The other stared at him for a few moments and 
then walked slowly away, muttering: 

“ A mystery — a mystery ! Oh, the notion of 
Dick Pritchard being a true prophet! Was it of 
such stuff as this the old prophets were made? 
God forgive me if I erred in thinking him one of 
the vain fellows. Mr. Wesley’s judgment was not 
at fault; he came hither to preach against him; 
but not a word did he utter of upbraiding or 
reproof.” 

Wesley saw that the man was quite overcome. 
Up to this moment he had shown himself to be 
possessed of a rational mind, and one that was not 
easily put off its balance. He had only a few 
hours before been discussing Pritchard in a sober 
and unemotional spirit; but this last mystery had 
been too much for him : the disappearance of the 
sea, which had lately climbed up to the doors of 
Porthawn, had unhinged him and thrown him off 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 219 

his balance. If the phenomenon had occurred at 
any other time — under any less trying conditions 
of weather — he might have been able to observe it 
with equanimity; but the day had been, as Wesley 
said, a trying one. The intense heat was of itself 
prostrating, and demoralising even to Wesley him- 
self, and he had schooled himself to be unaffected 
by any conditions of weather. 

Suddenly Hartwell turned toward his visitor, 
saying : 

“ And if the man was entrusted to predict the 
falling away of the sea, is there anyone that will 
say that the remainder of his prophecy will not be 
fulfilled? ” 

“ I entreat of you, brother, to forbear asking 
yourself any further questions until you have had 
a few hours’ sleep,” said Wesley. 

“ What signifies a sleep now if before this time 
to-morrow the end of all things shall have come? ” 
Hartwell cried almost fiercely. “ Nay, sir, I shall 
wait with the confidence of a Christian ; I shall not 
be found as were the foolish virgins — asleep and 
with unlighted lamps. There will be no slumber 
for me. I shall watch and pray.” 

“ Let us pray together, my brother,” said Wes- 
ley, laying his hand on the man’s shoulder affec- 
tionately. He perceived that he was not in a mood 
to be reasoned with. 

It was at this moment that the door was opened 
and there entered the room the miller and Jake 
Pullsford. 

Wesley welcomed their coming; he had hopes 
that they would succeed in persuading his host to 
retire; but before they had been in the room for 
more than a few minutes Hartwell had well-nigh 
become himself again. 


220 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The newcomers were not greatly affected by any- 
thing that had happened. They were only regret- 
ful that the mist of the morning had prevented 
them from reaching the Red Tor in time for the 
preaching. They had started together, but had 
stopped upon the way to help a party of their 
friends who were in search of still another party, 
and when the strayed ones had been found they 
all had thought it prudent to remain at a farm 
where they had dined. 

“ On our way hither we met with one who had 
been to the preaching,” said Jake. “ He told us 
something of what we had missed.” 

“ Were you disappointed to learn that no refer- 
ence had been made to the very matter that brought 
me back to you?” asked Wesley. 

Jake did not answer immediately. It was ap- 
parent that he had his own views on this matter, 
and that he had been expounding them to his com- 
panion on their walk from the farm to the coast. 

“ Mr. Wesley, ’tis plain to me that the skill at 
divination shown by that man comes from below, 
not from above,” he said. “ And do you suppose 
that our enemies will take back any of the foul 
things they have said about our allying ourselves 
with sorcery when they hear of the wonderful 
things that are now happening? ” 

“ Brother,” said Wesley, “ if the principles of 
the Truth which we have been teaching are indeed 
true, they will survive such calumnies — nay, they 
will take the firmer hold upon all who have heard 
us by reason of such calumnies. The gold of the 
Truth has oft been tried by the fire of calumny and 
proved itself to be precious.” 

“ You saw the man play-acting in his sackcloth? ” 
said the carrier. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 221 


Wesley shook his head sadly. 

“ ’Twas deplorable ! ” he said. “ And yet I dare 
not even now speak against him — no, not a word.” 

“ What, sir, you do not believe that he is a sor- 
cerer and a soothsayer? ” cried Jake. 

“ I have not satisfied myself that he is either,” 
replied Wesley. “ More than once since I saw how 
much evil was following on his predictions I have 
felt sure that he was an agent of our Arch-enemy, 
but later I have not felt quite so confident in my 
judgment. No, friend, I shall not judge him. He 
is in the hands of God.” 

“ And I agree with Mr. Wesley,” said the miller. 

Jake Pullsford, with his hands clasped behind 
him and his head craned forward, was about to 
speak, when Hal Holmes entered the room. He 
was excited. 

“ Have you seen it? ” he cried before he had 
greeted anyone. “ Have you seen it — the vision 
of his trance at the Mill — the tide sliding away as 
it hath never done before within the memory of 
man? — the discovery of the bare hollow basin of 
the sea? Have you been within sight of the Dog’s 
Teeth? ” 

“ We — Mr. Hartwell and I — have not been out 
of doors for six hours ; but we are going now,” said 
Wesley. “We have seen some of the wonders that 
have happened ; we would fain witness all.” 

“ Oh, sir,” said the blacksmith, “ this one is the 
first that I have seen, and seeing it has made me 
think that we were too hasty in condemning poor 
Dick Pritchard. We need your guidance, sir. 
Do you hold that a man may have the gift of 
prophecy in this Dispensation, without being a 
sorcerer, and the agent of the Fiend? ” 

“ Alas ! ’tis not I that can be your guide in such 


222 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


a matter,” said Wesley. “ You must join with me 
in seeking for guidance from above. Let us go 
forth and see what is this new wonder.” 

“ ’Tis the vision of his trance — I saw it with 
these eyes as I passed along the high ground above 
the Dog’s Teeth Reef — the reef was well-nigh bare 
and naked,” said Hal. “ Who is there of us that 
could tell what the bottom of the sea looked like? 
We knew what the simple slopes of the beach were 
— the spaces where the tide was wont to ebb and 
flow over are known to all; but who before since 
the world began saw those secret hidden deeps 
where the lobsters lurk and crabs half the size of 
a man’s body — I saw them with these eyes a while 
agone — and the little runnels — a thousand of them, 
I believe, racing through channels in the slime as 
if they were afraid to be left behind when the sea 
was ebbing out of sight — and the sun turned all 
into the colour of blood! What does it all mean, 
Mr. Wesley — I do not mean the man’s trance- 
dream, but the thing itself that hath come to 
pass? ” 

“ We shall go forth and be witnesses of all,” said 
Wesley. 

He was not excited ; but this could not be said of 
his companions; they betrayed their emotions in 
various ways. Mr. Hartwell and the miller were 
silent and apparently stolid; but the carrier and 
the smith talked. 

Very few minutes sufficed to bring them to the 
summit of the cliff that commanded a full view sea- 
ward. At high tide the waves just reached the 
base of these cliffs, and the furthest ebb only left 
bare about a hundred feet of sand and shingle, with 
large smooth pebbles in ridges beyond the groins 
of the out-jutting rocks. But now it was a very 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 223 


different picture from that of the ordinary ebb that 
stretched away to the horizon under the eyes of our 
watchers. 

The sandy breadth, with its many little ribs made 
by the waves, sloped into a line of sparse sea weed, 
tangled tufts of green and brown, and some long 
and wiry, and others flat with large and leathery 
bosses, like the studs of a shield. But beyond this 
space the rocks of the sea-bed began to show, 
There they were in serrated rows — rocks that had 
never before been seen by human eyes. Some lay 
in long sharp ridges, with here and there a peak 
of a miniature mountain, and beyond these lines of 
ridges there was a broad tableland, elevated in 
places and containing huge hollow basins brim- 
ming over with water, out of which every now and 
again a huge fish leaped, only to find itself strug- 
gling among the thick weeds. Further away still 
there was a great breadth of ooze, and then peak 
beyond peak of rocks, to which huge, grotesque 
weeds were clinging, having the semblance of snakes 
coiled round one another and dying in that close 
embrace. 

Looking over these strange spaces was like 
having a bird’s-eye view of an unexplored coun- 
try of mountains and tablelands and valleys inter- 
sected by innumerable streams. The whole breadth 
of sea-bed was veined with little streams hurrying 
away after the lost sea, and all the air was filled 
with the prattling and chattering that went on 
through these channels. 

And soon one became aware of a strange motion 
of struggling life among the forests of sea weed. 
At first it seemed no more than a quivering among 
the giant growths; but soon one saw the snake’s 
head and the narrow shoulders of a big conger eel, 


224 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


from five to seven feet long, pushed through the 
jungle of ooze, to be followed by the wriggling 
body; there were congers by the hundred, and the 
hard-dying dog-fishes by the score, flapping and 
forcing their way from stream to stream. Stranded 
dying fish of all sorts made constant movements 
where they lay, and whole breadths of the sea-bed 
were alive with hurrying, scurrying crabs and lob- 
sters and cray-fish. Some of these were of enor- 
mous size, patriarchs of the deep that had lurked 
for ages far out of reach of the fisherman’s hook, 
and had mangled many a creel. 

The weirdness of this unparalleled picture was 
immeasurably increased by its colouring, for over 
all there was spread what had the effect of a deli- 
cate crimson gauze. The whole of the sea-bed was 
crimson, for it was still dripping wet, and glisten- 
ing with reflections of the red western sky. At the 
same time the great heat of the evening was suck- 
ing the moisture out of the spongy sea weeds, and 
there it remained in the form of a faint steam 
permeated with the crimson light. 

And through all that broad space under the eyes 
of the watchers on the cliff* there was no sign of 
a human being. They might have been the ex- 
plorers of stout Cortez who stared at the Pacific 
from that peak in Darien. It was not until they 
had gone in silence for a quarter of a mile along 
the cliff path that they saw where the people of 
the village had assembled. The shore to the west- 
ward came into view and they saw that a crowd 
was there. The sound of the voices of the crowd 
came to their ears, and above it the hard, high 
monotone like that of a town crier uttering the 
words that Wesley had heard while yet in his 
room : 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 225 


u There shall be no more sea. Repent — repent 
— repent.” 

Once more they stood and looked down over the 
part of the coast that had just been disclosed — 
the eastern horn of Greta Bay, but no familiar 
landmark was to be seen ; on the contrary, it seemed 
to them that they were looking down upon a new 
and curious region. The line of cliffs was familiar 
to their eyes, but what was that curious raised 
spine — that long sharp ridge stretching outwards 
for more than a mile on the glistening shore? 

And what was that strange object — that huge 
bulk lying with one end tilted into the air on one 
shoulder of that sharp ridge? 

All at once Wesley had a curious feeling that he 
had seen all that before. The sight of that mighty 
bulk and the knowledge that it was the heavy 
ribbed framework of a large ship seemed familiar. 
But when or how had he seen it? 

It was not until Hartwell spoke that he under- 
stood how this impression had come to him. 

“ You see it — there — there — just as he described 
it to us when he awoke from his trance?” said 
Hartwell. 

And there indeed it was — the fabric of the East 
Indiaman that had been wrecked years before on 
the Dog’s Teeth Reef, and there was the Dog’s 
Teeth Reef laid bare for the first time within the 
memory of man! 

It was the skeleton of a great ship. The outer 
timbers had almost wholly disappeared — after 
every gale for years before some portion of the 
wreckage had come ashore and had been picked up 
by the villagers; but the enormous framework to 
which the timbers of the hull had been bolted had 
withstood the action of the waves, for the ship 


226 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


had sunk into a cradle of rock that held her firmly 
year after year. There it lay like the skeleton of 
some tremendous monster of the awful depths of 
the sea — the Kraken — a survival of the creatures 
that lived before the Flood. The three stumps of 
masts which stood up eight or ten feet above the 
line of bulwarks gave a curious suggestion to a 
creature’s deformed legs, up in the air while it 
lay stranded on its curved back. 

And the crimson sunset shot through the huge 
ribs of this thing and spread their distorted 
shadows sprawling over the sands at the base of 
the reef and upon the faces of the people who stood 
looking up at this wonder. 

“ There it is — just as he saw it in his trance ! ” 
said Hal Holmes. “ He saw it and related it to 
us afterward. What are we to say to all this, Mr. 
Wesley? All that he predicted so far has come 
to pass. Are we safe in saying that yonder 
sun will be setting over a blazing world to-mor- 
row? ” 

“ I do not dare to say anything,” replied Wesley. 
“ I have already offered my opinion to Mr. Hart- 
well, which is that there may be a kind of sym- 
pathy between the man and the earth, by whose 
aid he has been able to discover the whereabouts of 
a spring in the past and to predict these marvels 
of tides.” 

“ That is a diviner’s skill derived from the 
demons that we know inhabit the inside of the 
earth,” cried Jake Pullsford. “ He has ever had 
communication with these unclean things.” 

“ That works so far as the tides are concerned,” 
said the smith. “ It stands to reason that the 
demons of the nether world must know all about 
the ebb and flow ; but how did he foresee the laying 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 227 


bare of yonder secret? ” He pointed to the body 
of the wreck. 

“Was it not the same demons that dragged the 
ship to destruction on the reef, and is’t not within 
their province to know all that happens below the 
surface of the sea? ” said the carrier. 

“ Doubtless,” said the smith. “ But I find it 
hard to think of $o moderately foolish a fellow as 
Dick Pritchard being hand in glove with a fiend of 
any sort, and not profiting more by the traffic — 
as to his secular circumstances, I should say.” 

“And I find it hard to think of him as urging 
men to repent, if he be an ally of the Evil One,” 
said Hartwell. 

“ This is not a case in which the wisdom of man 
can show itself to be other than foolishness,” said 
Wesley. “ But I am now moved to speak to the 
people who have come hither to see the wonder. 
Let us hasten onward to the highest ground. My 
heart is full.” 

He went on with his friends to a short spur of 
the cliff about twenty feet above the shingle where 
groups of men and women were straying; most of 
them had been down to the wreck and nearly all 
were engaged in discussing its marvellous appear- 
ance. Some of the elder men were recalling for 
the benefit of the younger the circumstances of the 
loss of the great East Indiaman, and the affluence 
that had come to a good many houses in the Port, 
when the cargo began to be washed ashore before 
the arrival of the Preventive men and the soldiery 
from Falmouth. 

But while the larger proportion of the people 
were engaged in discussing, without any sense of 
awe, the two abnormal tides and the story of the 
wreck, there were numbers who were clearly terror- 


228 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


stricken at the marvels and at the prospect of the 
morrow. A few women were clinging together and 
moaning without cessation, a girl or two wept 
aloud, a few shrieked hysterically, and one began 
to laugh and gibber, pointing monkey hands in the 
direction of the wreck. But further on half a 
dozen young men and maidens were engaged in a 
boisterous and an almost shocking game preserved 
in Cornwall and some parts of Wales through the 
ages that had elapsed since it was practised by a 
by-gone race of semi-savages. They went through 
it now in the most abandoned and barbaric way, 
dancing like Bacchanalians in a ring, with shouts 
and wild laughter. 

John Wesley, who knew what it was to be human, 
had no difficulty in perceiving that these wretched 
people were endeavouring in such excesses to con- 
ceal the terror they felt, and he was not surprised 
to find a number of intoxicated men clinging to- 
gether and singing wildly in the broad moorland 
space that lay on the landward side of the cliffs. 

“ This is the work of Pritchard the water-finder, 
and will you say that ? tis not of the Devil? ” cried 
Jake Pullsford. 

“ Poor wretches ! Oh, my poor brothers and 
sisters ! ” cried Wesley. “Our aim should be to 
soothe them, not to denounce them. Never have 
they been subjected to such a strain as that which 
has been put upon them. I can understand their 
excesses. ‘ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow 
we die ’ — that is the cry which comes from all 
hearts that have not been regenerated. ’Tis the 
cry of the old Paganism which once ruled the world, 
before the sweet calm of Christianity brought men 
from earth to heaven. I will speak to them.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILEr 229 


He had reached the high ground with his friends. 
There was a sudden spur on the range of low cliffs 
just where the people were most numerous. They 
had come from all quarters to witness the wonders 
of this lurid eve, and, as was the case at Wesley’s 
preaching, everyone was asking of everyone else 
how so large an assembly could be brought together 
in a neighbourhood that was certainly not densely 
populated. On each side of him and on the beach 
below there were crowds, and on every face the 
crimson of the sinking sun flamed. He went out 
to the furthest point of the cliff-spur and stood 
there silent, with uplifted arms. 

In a moment the whisper spread : 

“ Mr. Wesley has come — Mr. Wesley is preach- 
ing ! ” 

There was the sound of many feet trampling 
down the pebbles of the beach. The people flowed 
toward him like a great wave slowly moving over 
that place now forsaken by the waves. The young 
men and maidens who had been engaged in that 
fierce wild dance among the wiry herbage flocked 
toward him, their faces shining from their exer- 
tions, and stood catching their breath. The old 
men who had been staring stolidly through the 
great ribs of the hulk, slouched through the ooze 
and stood sideways beneath him, their hands, like 
the gnarled joints of a thorn, scooped behind their 
ears lest they should lose a word. The women, 
with disordered hair, tears on their faces, the terror 
of anticipation in their eyes, waited on the ground, 
some kneeling, others seated in various postures. 

Then there came a deep hush. 

He stood there, a solitary figure, black against 
the crimson background of the western sky, his 


230 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


arms still upraised. It might have been a statue 
carved out of dark marble that stood on the spur 
of the cliff. 

And then he began to speak. 

His hands were still uplifted in the attitude of 
benediction; and the words that came from him 
were the words of the Benediction. 

“ The Peace of God which passeth all under- 
standing.^ 

The Peace of God — that was the message which 
he delivered to that agitated multitude, and it fell 
upon their ears, soothing all who heard and banish- 
ing their fears. He gave them the message of the 
Father to His children — a message of love, of ten- 
derness — a promise of protection, of infinite pity, 
of a compassion that knew no limits — outliving the 
life of the world, knowing no change through all 
ages, the only thing that suffered no change — a 
compassion which, being eternal, would outlive 
Time itself — a compassion which brought with it 
every blessing that man could know — nay, more — 
more than man could think of; a compassion that 
brought with it the supreme blessing that could 
come to man — the Peace of God which passeth all 
understanding ! 

He never travelled outside this message of Divine 
Peace, although he spoke for a full hour. 

And while he spoke the meaning of that message 
fell upon the multitude who listened. They felt 
that Peace of which he spoke falling gently upon 
them as cold dew at the close of a day of intolerable 
heat. They realised what it meant to them. The 
Peace descended upon them, and they were sensible 
of its presence. The dread that had been hanging 
over them all the day was swept away as the morn- 
ing mist had been dispersed. The apprehension of 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 231 


the Judgment was lost in the consciousness of a 
Divine Love surrounding them. They seemed to 
have passed from an atmosphere of foetid vapours 
into that of a meadow in the Spring time. They 
drank deep draughts of its sweetness and were 
refreshed. 

When he had begun to speak the sun was not far 
from setting in the depths of a crimson sky, and 
before he had spoken for half an hour the immense 
red disc, magnified by the vapours in the air, was 
touching the horizon. With its disappearance the 
colour spread higher up the sky and drifted round 
to the north, gradually changing to the darkest 
purple. Even then it was quite possible for the 
people to see one another’s features distinctly in 
the twilight, but half an hour later the figure of 
the preacher was but faintly seen through the dim- 
ness that had fallen over the coast. The twilight 
had been almost tropical in its brevity, and the ef- 
fect of the clear voice of many modulations coming 
out of the darkness was strange, and to the ears that 
heard it, mysterious. Just before it ceased there 
swept upon the faces of his listeners a cool breath 
of air. It came with a suddenness that was star- 
tling. During all the day there had not been a 
breath. The heat had seemed to be so solid, and 
now the movement of the air gave the impression 
of the passing of a mysterious Presence. It was as 
if the wings of a company of angels were winnow- 
ing the air, as they fled by, bringing with them the 
perfume of their Paradise for the refreshing of the 
people of the earth. Only for a few minutes that 
cool air was felt, but for that time it was as if 
the Peace of God had been made tangible. 

When the preacher ended with the words with 
which he had begun, the silence was like a sigh. 


232 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The people were on their knees. There was no 
one that did not feel that God was very nigh to 
him. 

And the preacher felt it most deeply of all. 
There was a silence of intense solemnity, before the 
voice was heard once more speaking to Heaven in 
prayer — in thanksgiving for the Peace that had 
come upon this world from above. 

He knew how fully his prayer had been answered 
when he talked to the young men and maidens who 
had been among his hearers. The excitement of 
the evening had passed away from all of them. At 
the beginning of his preaching there had been the 
sound of weeping among them. At first it had 
been loud and passionate; but gradually it had 
subsided until at the setting of the sun the terror 
which had possessed them gave place to the peace 
of the twilight, and now there was not one of them 
that did not feel the soothing influence that comes 
only when the angel of the evening hovers with 
shadowy outspread wings over the world. 

They all walked slowly to their homes; some be- 
longed to Porthawn and others to the inland vil- 
lages of the valley of the Lana, as far away as 
Ruthallion, and the light breeze that had been felt 
during the preaching became stronger and less 
intermittent now. It was cool and gracious be- 
yond expression, and it brought with it to the ears 
of all who walked along the cliffs the soothing 
whisper of the distant sea. The joyous tidings 
came that the sea was returning, and it seemed that 
with that news came also the assurance that the 
cause for dread was over and past. 

And all this time the preacher had made no al- 
lusion to the voice that had sounded along the shore 
in the early part of the evening predicting the over- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 233 

throw of the world. All that he had done was to 
preach the coming of Peace. 

“ You may resume your journeying, Mr. Wesley, 
as soon as you please. May he not, friend Pulls- 
ford? ” said Hartwell when he had returned to his 
house. “ There is no need for us to keep Mr. Wes- 
ley among us when we know that he is anxious to 
resume his preaching further west. You never 
mentioned the man’s name, sir, and yet you have 
done all — nay, far more than we thought it possible 
for you to accomplish.” 

“ There is no need for me to tarry longer,” re- 
plied Wesley. “But I pray of you, my dear 
friends, not to think that I do not recognise the 
need there was for me to return to you with all 
speed. I perceived the great danger that threat- 
ened us through Pritchard, and I was glad that 
you sent for me. I hope you agree with me in be- 
lieving that that danger is no longer imminent.” 

“ I scarce know how it happened,” said Hart- 
well ; “ but yesterday I had a feeling that unless 
you preached a direct and distinct rebuke to 
Pritchard, the work which you began here last 
month would suffer disaster, and yet albeit you 
did no more than preach the Word as you might at 
any time, making no reference to the things that 
have happened around us, I feel at the present 
moment that your position is, by the Grace of God, 
more promising of good than it has ever been.” 

“ Ay,” said Jake Pullsford. “ But I am not so 
sure that the vanity of that man should not have 
been crushed. There is no telling to what length 
he may not go after all that has happened. The 
people should ha’ been warned against him, and his 
sorceries exposed.” 

“ Think you, Jake, that the best way to destroy 


234 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

the vanity of such as he would be by taking notice i 
of what he said and magnifying it into a menace? ” i 
said Hartwell. “ Believe me, my friend, that Mr. 
Wesley’s way is the true one. Dick Pritchard’s 
vanity got its hugest filip when he heard that Mr. 
Wesley had come back to preach against him. It 
will receive its greatest humiliation when he learns 
that Mr. Wesley made no remark that showed he 
knew aught of him and his prophecies.” 

“ He will take full credit to himself for what has 
happened — of that you may be sure,” said Jake, j 
shaking his head. “ Ay, and for what did not I 
happen,” he continued as an afterthought. “ Be 
certain that he will claim to have saved the world 
as Jonah saved the Ninevites. He will cling to 
Jonah to the end.” 

“ I am glad that I came hither when you called 
for me, my brethren,” said Wesley. “ Let us look 
at the matter with eyes that look only at the final 
issue. I would fain banish from my mind every 
thought save one, and that is spiritual blessing of 
the people. If they have been soothed by my com- 
ing — if even the humblest of them has been led to 
feel something of what is meant by the words i the 
Peace of God,’ I give thanks to God for having 
called me back. I have no more to say.” 

And that was indeed the last word that was said 
at that time respecting Pritchard and his utter- 
ances. Wesley and his friends felt that, however 
deeply the people had been impressed by the nat- 
ural phenomena which had followed hard on Ids 
predictions of disaster to the world, he would not 
now be a source of danger to the work which had 
been begun in Cornwall. Wesley had, by his 
preaching, showed that he would give no counte- 
nance to the man. Those who thought that it 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 235 


would be consistent with his methods and his 
Methodism to take advantage of the terror with 
which the minds of the people had become imbued, 
in order to bring them into the classes that had 
already been formed, were surprised to find him 
doing his utmost to banish their fears. He had 
preached the Gospel of Peace, not of Vengeance, 
the Gospel of Love, not of Anger. 

Awakening shortly after midnight, Wesley heard 
the sound of the washing of the waters on the peb- 
bles at the base of the cliffs. There was no noise 
of breaking waves, only the soft, even lisp and lap 
of the last ripples that were crushed upon the peb- 
bles — grateful and soothing to his ears. 

Suddenly there came to him another sound — the 
monotone of the watchman calling out of the 
distance : 

“ Repent — repent — repent ! The Day of the Lord 
is at hand. Who shall abide the Day of His 
Wrath? Repent — repent — repent!” 


XX 


The sunlight was in his room when he awoke. 
He had a sense of refreshment. A weight seemed 
lifted off his heart. He remembered how he had 
awakened the previous morning in the same bed 
with a feeling of perplexity. He had found it im- 
possible to make up his mind as to the course he 
should pursue in regard to Pritchard. He had 
been fearful of being led to rebuke a man who 
might have been made the means of leading even 
one sinner to repentance. He asked himself if he 
differed as much from that man as the average 
churchman did from himself in his methods. He 
knew how grievous he regarded the rebukes which 
he had received from excellent clergymen who 
looked on his field preaching with the sternest dis- 
approval; and who then was he that he should 
presume to rebuke a man who had been led by his 
zeal beyond what he, Wesley, thought to be the 
bounds of propriety? 

He had felt great perplexity on awakening on 
that Sunday morning; but he had been given help 
to see his way clearly on that morning of mist, and 
now he felt greatly at ease. He had nothing to 
reproach himself with. 

He recalled all the events of the day before — all 
that his eyes had seen — all that his ears had heard ; 
and now that he had no further need to think about 
Pritchard, it was surprising how much he had to 
recall that had little to do with that man. He 
himself felt somewhat surprised that above all that 

236 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 237 


had been said to him during the day the words that 
he should dwell longest upon were a few words 
that had fallen from Mr. Hartwell. He had hinted 
to Mr. Hartwell that John Bennet had acted so 
grossly in regard to him, through a mad jealousy; 
and Mr. Hartwell, hearing this, had lifted up his 
hands in amazement, and said: 

“ Absurdity could go no further ! ” 

When Hartwell said those words Wesley had not 
quite grasped their full import; his attention had 
been too fully occupied with the further extrava- 
gance which he had witnessed on the part of 
Pritchard. But now that his mind was at ease 
he recalled the words, and he had sufficient self- 
possession to ask himself if his host considered that 
the absurdity was to be found in Bennet’s fancying 
that he, Wesley, was his rival. If so, was the ab- 
surdity to be found in the fancy that such a young 
woman could think of him, Wesley, in the light 
of a lover; or that he should think of the young 
woman as a possible wife? 

He could not deny that the thought of Nelly 
Polwhele as his constant companion had more than 
once come to him when he was oppressed with a 
sense of his loneliness; and he knew that when he 
had got Mr. HartwelPs letter calling him back to 
Porthawn he had felt that it might be that there 
was what some men called Fate, but what he pre- 
ferred to call the Hand of God, in this matter. 
Was he being led back to have an opportunity of 
seeing her again, and of learning truly if the regard 
which he thought he felt for her was to become the 
love that sanctified the marriage of a man with a 
woman? 

Well, he had returned to her, and he had seen 
(as he fancied) her face alight with the happiness 


238 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


of liis return. For an hour he had thought of the 
gracious possibility of being able to witness such 
an expression upon her face any time that he came 
from a distant preaching. The thought was a de- 
light to him. Home — coming home! He had no 
home; and surely, he felt, the longing for a home 
and a face to welcome him at the door was the 
most natural — the most commendable — that a man 
could have. And surely such a longing was not 
inconsistent with his devotion to the work which 
he believed it was laid upon him to do while his 
life lasted. 

He had seen her and talked with her for a short 
time, and felt refreshed by being under the influ- 
ence of her freshness. But. then he had been forced 
to banish her from his iflind in order to give all 
his attention to the grave matter which had brought 
him back to this place. He had walked by her side 
through the mist the next day, and never once had 
he allowed the thought of her to turn his eyes away 
from the purpose which had called him forth 
into the mist of the morning. He thought of her 
thoughtfulness in the matter of the mariner’s com- 
pass with gratitude. That was all. His heart 
was full of his work; there was no room in it for 
anything else. 

But now while he sat up in the early sunshine 
that streamed through his window he felt himself 
free to think of her; and the more he thought of 
her the more he wondered how he could ever have 
been led to believe what he had already embodied in 
a book respecting the advantages of celibacy for 
the clergy. A clergyman should not only have a 
knowledge of God ; a knowledge of man was essen- 
tial to success in his calling; and a knowledge of 
man meant a wide sympathy with men, and this 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 239 


he now felt could only be acquired by one who had 
a home of his own. The influence of the home and 
its associations could not but be the greatest to 
which a man was subject. The ties that bind a 
man to his home were those which bind him to his 
fellow-men. The res angusta domi, which some 
foolish persons regarded as detrimental to a man’s 
best work, were, he was now convinced, the very 
incidents which enabled him to do good work, 
for they enabled him to sympathise with his 
fellows. 

Theologians do not, any more than other people, 
feel grateful to those who have shown them to be 
in the wrong; but Wesley had nothing but the kind- 
liest feelings for Nelly Polwhele for having un- 
wittingly led him to see that the train of reason- 
ing which he had pursued in his book was founded 
upon an assumption which was in itself the result 
of an immature and impersonal experience of any 
form of life except the Academic, and surely such 
a question as he had discussed should be looked 
at from every other standpoint than the Academic. 

Most certainly he was now led to think of 
the question from very different standpoints. He 
allowed his thoughts to wander to the girl 
herself. He thought of her quite apart from all 
womankind. He had never met any young woman 
who seemed to possess all the charms which en- 
dear a woman to a man. She was bright as a 
young woman should be, she was thoughtful for 
the needs of all who were about her, she had shown 
herself ready to submit to the guidance of one who 
was older and more experienced than herself. He 
could not forget how she had promised him never 
again to enter the playhouse which had so fas- 
cinated her. Oh, she was the most gracious crea- 


240 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


ture that lived — the sweetest, the tenderest, and 
surely she must prove the most devoted! 

So his imagination carried him away; and then 
suddenly he found himself face to face with that 
phrase of Mr. Hartwell’s “Absurdity could go no 
further ” 

And then, of course, he began to repeat all the 
questions which he had put to himself when he had 
started on his investigations into the matter. Once 
more he said : 

“Where lies the source of all absurdities?” 

And equally as a matter of course he was once 
again led in the direction that his thoughts had 
taken before until he found himself enquiring if 
the world held another so sweet and gracious and 
sympathetic. 

It was not until he was led once more to his 
starting-point that he began to feel as he had never 
done before for those of his fellow-men who allowed 
themselves to be carried away by dwelling on the 
simplest of the questions which engrossed him. 

“ ’Tis a repetition of yesterday morning,” said 
he. “ We set out pleasantly enough in the mist, 
and after an hour’s profitless wandering we found 
ourselves at the point whence we had started — ay, 
and the young woman was waiting for us there in 
person.” 

Was that morning’s wandering to be typical of 
his life? he wondered. Was he to be ever straying 
along a misty coast, and evermore to be finding 
himself at the point whence he had started, with 
Nelly Polwhele waiting for him there? 

An absurdity, was it? 

Well, perhaps — but, after all, should he not be 
doing well in asking Mr. Hartwell what had been 
in his mind when he had made use of that phrase? 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 241 


Mr. Hartwell had undoubtedly something in his 
mind, and he was a level-headed man who had ac- 
customed himself to look at matters without preju- 
dice and to pronounce an opinion based on his 
common sense. It might be that he could see some 
grave reason why he, Wesley, should dismiss that 
young woman forever from his thoughts — forever 
from his heart. . . . 

But, of course, he reserved to himself the right 
to consider all that Mr. Hartwell might say on this 
matter, and — if he thought it right — to exercise 
his privilege of veto in regard to his conclusions. 
He was not prepared to accept the judgment of Mr. 
Hartwell without reserve. 

Following this line of thought, he quickly saw 
that whatever Mr. Hartwell might have to say, and 
however his conclusions might be put aside, it 
would be necessary for him, Wesley, to acquaint 
all those men who were associated with him in his 
work with his intention of marrying a certain 
young woman. There were his associates in Lon- 
don, in Bristol, in Bath, and above all there was 
his brother Charles. Would they be disposed to 
think that such a union would be to the advantage 
or to the detriment of the work to which they were 
all devoted? 

The moment he thought of his brother he knew 
what he might expect. Up to that moment it had 
really never occurred to him that any objection 
that might not reasonably be overruled, could be 
offered to his marrying Nelly Polwhele. But 
so soon as he asked himself what his brother 
would say when made aware of his intention, he 
perceived how it was conceivable that his other 
friends might agree with Mr. Hartwell. For him- 
self, he had become impressed from the first with 


242 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


some of those qualities on the part of Nelly Pol- 
whele which, he was convinced, made her worthy of 
being loved by the most fastidious of men. He had 
long ago forgotten that she was only the daughter 
of a fisherman, and that she owed her refinement 
of speech to the patronage of the Squire’s daugh- 
ters whose maid she had been. 

But what would his brother say when informed 
that it was his desire to marry a young woman who 
had been a lady’s maid? Would not his brother be 
right to assume that such a union would be detri- 
mental to the progress of the work in which they 
were engaged? Had they not often talked together 
deploring how so many of their brethren in the 
Church had brought contempt upon their order 
through their loss of self-respect in marrying 
whomsoever their dissolute patrons had ordered 
them to marry? What respect could anyone have 
for his lordship’s chaplain who was content to sit 
at the side table at meals and in an emergency dis- 
charge the duties of a butler, and comply without 
hesitation to his lordship’s command to marry her 
ladyship’s maid, or, indeed, any one of the servants 
whom it was found desirable to have married? 

The thing was done every day; that was what 
made it so deplorable, he and his brother had 
agreed; and in consequence day by day the influ- 
ence of the clergy was declining. Was he then 
prepared to jeopardise the work to which he had 
set his hand by such a union as he was contem- 
plating? 

He sprang to his feet from where he had been 
sitting by the window. 

“ Heaven forgive me for having so base a 
thought ! ” he cried. “ Heaven forgive me for 
being so base as to class the one whom I love with 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 243 


such creatures as his patron orders his chaplain 
to marry ! She is a good and innocent child, and 
if she will come to me I shall feel honoured. I 
shall prove to all the world that a woman, though 
lowly-born, may yet be a true helpmeet for such 
as I. She will aid me in my labours, not impede 
them. I know now that I love her. I know now 
that she will be a blessing to me. I love her, and 
I pray that I may ever love her truly and honestly.” 

It was characteristic of the man that the very 
thought of opposition should strengthen him. An 
hour earlier he had been unable to assure himself 
that his feeling for her was love, but now he felt 
assured on this point: he loved her, and he had 
never before loved a woman. She was the first 
fruit of his mission to Cornwall. She had pro- 
fessed the faith to which even he himself had failed 
to attain until he had been preaching for years. 
Bound to her by a tie that was the most sacred that 
could exist between a man and a woman, his most 
earnest hope was to hold her to him by another 
bond whose strands were interwoven with a sym- 
pathy that was human as well as divine. His mind 
was made up at last. 

He was early at breakfast with his host, but he 
did not now think it necessary to ask Mr. Hartwell 
what he had meant by his reference to the ab- 
surdity of John Bennet’s jealousy. The morning 
gave promise of a day of brilliant sunshine and 
warmth. There was nothing sinister in the aspect 
of the sun, such as had been noted on the previous 
day. 

“ Ah, sir,” said Hartwell, “ you came hither with 
a blessing to us all, and you will leave with a sense 
of having accomplished by the exercise of your own 
judgment far more than we looked for at such a 


244 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


time. The boats have put out to the fishing ground 
once more, and the dread that seemed overhanging 
our poor friends sank with the setting sun last 
evening.” 

“Not to me be the praise — not to me,” said 
Wesley, bowing his head in all humility. After a 
few moments he raised his head quite suddenly, 
saying : 

“ You have referred to my judgment, dear friend ; 
I wonder if you think that in many matters my 
judgment is worthy to be depended on? ” 

“ Indeed, sir, I know of no man in the world 
whose judgment in all reasonable matters I would 
accept sooner than yours,” replied Hartwell, 
“ Why, Mr. Wesley, who save you would have 
foreseen a way of avoiding the trouble which 
threatened us by such means as you adopted? 
Were not we all looking for you to administer a 
rebuke to the man whose vanity carried him so far 
away from what we held to be discreet? Was 
there one of us who foresaw that the right way of 
treating him was to let him alone?” 

“ I dare not say that ? twas my own judgment 
that guided me,” said Wesley. “ But — I hope, 
friend Hartwell, that I shall never be led to take 
any step that will jeopardise your good opinion of 
my capacity to judge what course is the right one 
to pursue in certain circumstances.” 

“ Believe me, Mr. Wesley, after the events of 
yesterday I shall not hesitate to say that you were 
in the right and I in the wrong, should I ever be 
disposed to differ from you on a matter of moment. 
But I cannot think such a difference possible to 
arrive,” said Hartwell. 

“ Differences in judgment are always possible 
among good friends,” said Wesley. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 245 


“ I should like to have a long talk with you some 
day, Mr. Wesley, on the subject of the influence of 
such powers as are at the command of Pritchard,” 
said Hartwell. “ Are they the result of sorcery 
or are they a gift from above? I have been think- 
ing a great deal about that trance of his which we 
witnessed. How was it possible for him to fore- 
see the place and the form of that wreck, think 
you? ” 

“ Howsoever his powers be derived,” replied 
Wesley, “ the lesson that we must learn from his 
case is that we cannot be too careful in choosing 
our associates. For myself, I have already said 
that I mistrusted him from the first, as I should any 
man practising with a divining rod.” 

“ We should have done so, too, sir, only that we 
had become so accustomed to his water-finding, it 
seemed as natural to send for him when sinking a 
well as it was to send for the mason to build the 
wall round it when the water was found.” 

This was all that they said at that time touch- 
ing the remarkable incidents of the week. Both of 
them seemed to regard the case of Pritchard as 
closed, although they were only in the morning of 
the day which the man had named in his predic- 
tion. Mr. Hartwell even assumed that his guest 
would be anxious to set out on his return to the 
west before noon, and he was gratified when Wes- 
ley asked for leave to stay on for a day or two yet. 

Wesley spent an hour or two over his corre- 
spondence, and all the time the matter which he had 
at heart caused him to lay down his pen and lie 
back in his chair, thinking, not upon the subject of 
his letters, but upon the question of approaching 
Nelly Polwhele, and upon the question of the letter 
which he would have to write to his brother when 


246 THE LOVE THAT PBEVAILED 


he had seen the girl ; for whether she accepted him 
or refused him, he felt that it was his duty to inform 
his brother as to what had occurred. 

The result of his meditations was as might have 
been expected. When a man who is no longer 
young gives himself up to consider the advisability 
of offering marriage to a young woman with whom 
he has not been in communication for much more 
than a month, he usually procrastinates in regard 
to the deciding scene. Wesley felt that perhaps he 
had been too hasty in coming to the conclusion that 
a marriage with Nelly would bring happiness to 
them both. Only a few hours had elapsed since he 
had, as he thought, made up his mind that he loved 
her. Should he not refrain from acting on such an 
impulse? What would be the consequence if he 
were to ask the young woman to be his wife and 
find out after a time that he should not have been 
so sure of himself? Surely so serious a step as he 
was contemplating should be taken with the utmost 
deliberation. He should put himself to the test. 
Although he had been looking forward to seeing the 
girl this day, he would not see her until the next 
day — nay, he was not confident that he might not 
perceive that his duty lay in waiting for several 
days before approaching her with his offer. 

That was why, when he left the house to take the 
air, he walked, not in the direction of the village, 
where he should run the best chance of meeting her, 
but toward the cliffs, which were usually deserted 
on week days, except by the Squire’s grooms, who 
exercised the horses in their charge upon the fine 
dry sand that formed a large plateau between the 
pathway and the struggling trees on the outskirts 
of Court Park. 

He went musing along the cliff way, thinking of 


‘THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 247 


the contrast between this day and the previous one 
— of the contrast between those sparkling waves 
that tossed over each other in lazy play, and the 
slime and ooze which had lain bare and horrid with 
their suggestions of destruction and disaster. It 
was a day such as one could scarcely have dreamt 
of following so sinister a sunset as he had watched 
from this place. It was a day that made him glad 
that he had not uttered a harsh word in rebuke of 
the man wbo had troubled him — indeed he felt most 
kindly disposed toward Pritchard ; he was certainly 
ready to forgive him for having been the means of 
bringing him, Wesley, back to this neighbourhood. 

He wondered if it had not been for Pritchard, 
would he have returned to Ruthallion and Port- 
ha wn. Was the affection for Nelly, of which he had 
become conscious during his journeying in the 
west, strong enough at that time to carry him back 
to Porthawn, or had it matured only since he had 
come back to her? 

He wondered and mused, strolling along the path 
above the blue Cornish waters. Once as he stood 
for a while, his eyes looked longingly in the direc- 
tion of the little port. He felt impatient for more 
than a few moments — impatient that he should be 
so strict a disciplinarian in regard to himself. It 
was with a sigh he turned away from where the 
roofs of the nearest houses could just be seen, and 
resumed his stroll with unfaltering feet. He had 
made his resolution and he would keep to it. 

But he did not get further than that little dip 
in the cliffs where he had once slept and awakened 
to find Nelly Polwhele standing beside him. The 
spot had a pleasant memory for him. He remem- 
bered how he had been weary when he had lain 
down there, and how he had risen up refreshed. 


248 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


Surely he must have loved her even then, he 
thought. What, was it possible that he had known 
her but a few days at that time? His recollection 
of her coming to him was as that of someone to 
whom he had been attached for years. 

He smiled as he recalled the tale which he had 
once read of the magician Merlin, who had woven a 
bed of rushes for the wife of King Mark, on which 
she had but to lie and forthwith she saw whomso- 
ever she wished to see. Well, here he was in the 
land of King Mark of Cornwall, and there was the 
place where he had made his bed. . . . 

He had been contemplating the comfortable hol- 
low between the rocks, thinking his thoughts, and 
he did not raise his eyes for some time. When he 
did he saw Nelly Pohvhele coming toward him, not 
along the cliffs, but across the breadth of moorland 
beyond which was the Court Park. 


CHAPTER XXI 


“ ’Tis by a happy chance we are brought to- 
gether, Wesley said while he held her hand. 

But Nelly Polwhele made haste to assure him 
that it was not by chance; she had been with her 
young ladies at the Court, she said, and from the 
high ground she had spied upon him on his walk, 
and had come to him through the sparse hedges of 
the park. 

He smiled at the eagerness with which she dis- 
claimed such an ally as chance. He had not had a 
wide experience of young women, but he had a 
shrewd conviction that the greater number of them 
would have hastened to acknowledge his suggestion 
rather than to repudiate it. She was innocent as a 
child. 

“ By whatsoever means we have been brought to- 
gether, I for one must think it happy,” said 
he. “ Do you go to your friends yonder every 
day? ” 

“ Oh, no, sir ; but they have charged me to keep 
them apprised of your preaching since you came 
hither, and thus I went to them yesterday — that 
was after your morning preaching — and to-day to 
tell them of the evening. Oh, sir, surely there was 
never aught seen that would compare with the hap- 
penings of yester eve! Even while I was rehears- 
ing all to my young ladies, I had a feeling that I 
was telling them what I had seen in a dream. I 
do think that I have had a dream more than once 
that was strangely like all that was before my eyes 

OA.Q 


250 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


— a dream of drowning and seeing in a blood-red 
light the mysteries of the sea-bed.” 

“ A strange thing, my child ! I have never seen 
a stranger thing,” said he. “ It did not seem a 
wonder to me that the people were so agitated.” 

“ They thought for sure that the end of the 
world had come,” said she. “ And indeed I began 
to feel that poor Dick Pritchard had truly been sent 
to warn us.” 

“ And how was his warning taken by many? ” he 
cried. “Worse than the Ninevites were some that 
I saw here. Of sackcloth there was none on their 
limbs — of repentance their hearts were empty. I 
hope, my child, that you did not see some of those 
whom I saw here — dancing — wild — pagan creatures 
of the woods! And their dance! Pagan of the 
worst — an orgy of the festival of the god Saturn — 
an abomination of Baal and Ashtoreth. And I 
asked myself, ‘ Is it possible that this is how a 
solemn warning of the coming of the Dreadful Day 
is taken by a Christian people? 9 But you, I trust, 
did not see all that came before me? ” 

“ I saw enough to tell me that Dick Pritchard’s 
warning was not a true one,” said she. “ I was by 
the side of father below the wreck. He had seen 
the Gloriana founder, and if Dick Pritchard had 
prophesied that he should live to look upon her hull 
again after all the years that have passed, he would 
have laughed. And some of the men about us on 
the beach that had never been bare of water since 
the world began, talked like wild men. If the world 
was to come to an end before another set o’ sun they 
meant to enjoy themselves — the Court — they whis- 
pered of breaking through the doors of the Court 
and feasting for once and for the last time. One of 
them — David Cairns is his name — cried that at the 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 251 


Day of Judgment all men were equal, and lie would 
head any band of fellows that had the spirit to face 
the Squire and call for the key of the cellar. Father 
called him a rascal, and he replied. Some were 
taking his part and some the part of father, when 
the cry went up that Mr. Wesley was nigh. That 
was the end of the strife, sir.” 

“ To tell me this last is to gladden my heart, my 
dear,” he said, and again he clasped one of her 
hands in both his own. But he did not do so with 
the fervour of a lover. His heart was not dwelling 
upon the purpose which he had been considering 
since he rose; the girl’s story had absorbed him. 
“ And now I hope that the good folk will settle 
down once more into their quiet and useful lives,” 
he added. 

“ They will not be able to do so for some time,” 
she replied, shaking her head. “ All who were 
present at the preaching have already returned to 
their work; the boats that were idle for nearly a 
week put out to the fishing early in the morning; 
but there are other places where Dick Pritchard’s 
talk was heard, and the miners made it a good ex- 
cuse for quitting their labour.” 

“ Poor fellows, I shall go among them at once ; I 
may be able to help them,” said he. 

“ Do you think of going at once, sir? ” she asked 
quickly. 

“ At once,” he replied. “ Is there any time to 
lose?” 

“ And you will not return to us? ” 

Her question came from her like a sigh — a sigh 
that is quickly followed by a sob. 

He looked at her for some moments in silence. 
He had a thought that if he meant to tell her that 
he loved her, no better opportunity would be likely 


252 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


to present itself. This was for the first few mo- 
ments, but his thought was succeeded by a feeling 
that it would be a cruelty to shock this innocent 
prattling child with his confession. She could not 
be otherwise than shocked were he to tell her that 
his desire was to get her promise to marry him. He 
would adhere to his resolution to wait. He would 
make another opportunity if one did not present 
itself. 

“ If it be God’s will I shall return to you,” he 
said. “ Yes, in good time — in good time.” 

“ I am glad,” she said. “ It was because I feared 
that you would go away at once and not return for 
a long time, that I made haste to reach you when 
I saw you from the park.” 

“ Why should my going affect you, Nelly?” he 
asked. He wondered if the opportunity which he 
looked for, and yet was anxious to avoid, would per- 
sist in remaining within easy reach. 

“ I — I — the truth is, sir, that I wanted — I wished 
greatly — to ask your advice,” she said. 

“ I hope you will not find that you have placed 
overmuch dependence on me,” he said. “ Let us 
walk along the cliffs and talk as we pursue our way. 
Not that I am anxious to leave this spot; it bears 
many happy memories to me. Was it not here that 
you came to me on the day of my first preaching, 
ministering to my needs? ” 

She flushed with pleasure. 

“ Ah, sir, all I did was as nothing compared with 
the good that has come to me through your words. 
I want your counsel now. I am sometimes very 
unhappy by reason of my doubts in a matter on 
which I should have none.” 

“ Tell me your grief, dear child. Have you not 
lived long enough to know that when the cause of 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 253 


your unhappiness is told to another, it weighs less 
heavily upon you? What, did you not confide in 
me on Saturday? ’Tis surely not from that man 
Bennet that ” 

“ Oh, no ; he has naught to do with my trouble. 
It comes not from anyone but my own self — from 
my own foolishness. You have a mind to hear the 
story of a young girl’s foolishness who knew not 
her own mind — her own heart? ” 

“ If you are quite sure that you wish to tell it 
to me. You may be assured that you will find in 
me a sympathetic listener. Is there any one of us 
that can say in truth that his heart or hers has not 
some time been guilty of foolishness? ” 

“ The worst of it is that what seems foolishness 
to-day had the semblance of wisdom yesterday. 
And who can say that to-morrow we may not go 
back to our former judgment? ” 

“ That is the knowledge that has come to you 
from experience.” 

“ It has come to me as the conclusion of my story 
— such as it is.” 

“ ’Tis sad to think that our best teacher must ever 
be experience, my child. But if you have learned 
your lesson you should be accounted fortunate. 
There are many to whom experience comes only to 
be neglected as a teacher.” 

“ I have had experience — a little — and all that it 
has taught to me is to doubt. A year ago I thought 
that I loved a man. To-day I do not know whether 
I love him or not — that is all my poor story, sir.” 

She had not spoken fluently, but faltering — with 
many pauses — a little wistfully, and with her eyes 
on the ground. 

He stopped suddenly in his walk. He, too, had 
his eyes upon the ground. He had not at once ap- 


254 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


preciated the meaning of her words, but after a 
pause it came upon him: he understood what her 
words meant to him. 

She loved another man. 

How could he ever have been so foolish as to take 
it for granted that such a girl as this was free? 
That was the first thought which came to him. Had 
he not heard how every youth for miles round was 
in love with Nelly Polwhele? Had he not seen how 
one man had almost lost his senses through love of 
her? 

And yet he had been considering the question of 
asking her to marry him, assuming from the very 
first that she must be free ! He had been consider- 
ing the matter from his own standpoint, asking 
himself if it would not be well to be assured of his 
own love for her before telling her that he loved her ; 
and he came to the conclusion that he should not 
use any undue haste in saying the words which, he 
hoped, would link their lives together. He had 
never entertained a suspicion that he might be too 
late in making his appeal to her. It was now a 
shock to him to learn, as he had just done, that he 
was too late. 

It took him some time to recover himself. 

“ I ask your pardon,” he said. “ I pray you to 
tell to me again what you have just said.” 

“ I am well-nigh ashamed to say it, sir,” she mur- 
mured. “ I am afraid that you may not think well 
of me. You may think that there is some truth in 
the reports that have gone abroad concerning me.” 

“ Reports? I have heard no reports. I thought 
of you as I found you, and all that I thought was 
good. I think nothing of you now that is not good. 
Ah, child, you do not know what direction my 
thoughts of you have taken ! Alas ! alas ! ” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 255 


It was her turn to be startled. He saw the effect 
that his words had produced upon her, and he has- 
tened to modify it. He felt that he had no right to 
say a word that might even in a distant way sug- 
gest to her the direction in which his thoughts — his 
hopes — had so recently led him. 

“ Have I spoken too vaguely? ” he said. “ Surely 
not. But I will be explicit, and assure you that 
from the day we walked through the valley side by 
side I have thought of you as a good daughter — an 
honest and innocent young woman, thoughtful for 
the well-being of others.” 

“ Oh, sir, your good opinion is everything to 
me ! ” she cried. “ But I feel that I have not earned 
it truly. Vanity has ever been my besetting sin — 
vanity and fickleness. That is what I have to con- 
fess to you now before asking you for your counsel.” 

“ God forbid that I should give you any counsel 
except that which I am assured must be for your 
own well-being. Tell me all that is weighing on 
your heart, and, God helping me, I will try to help 
you.” 

“ I will tell you all — all that I may tell, sir. ’Tis 
not much to tell, but it means a great deal to me. 
In brief, Mr. Wesley, a year ago I was at Bristol 
and there I met a worthy man, who asked me to 
marry him. I felt then that I loved him so truly 
that ’twould be impossible for me ever to change, 
and so I gave him my promise. I had been ofttimes 
wooed before, but because my heart had never been 
touched the neighbours all affirmed that I had the 
hardest heart of any maiden in the Port. They 
may have been right; but, hard-hearted or not, I 
believed that I loved this man, and he sailed away 
satisfied that I would be true to him.” 

“ He was a mariner? ” 


256 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ He is a master-mariner, and his ship is a fine 
one. He sailed for the China Seas, and ’twas 
agreed that after his long voyage we were to be 
married. That was, I say, a year ago, and I was 
true to him until ” 

She faltered, she gave him a look that he could not 
understand, and then all at once she flung herself 
down on the short coarse herbage of the cliff, and 
began to weep with her hands over her face. 

He strove to soothe her and comfort her, saying 
she had done naught that was wrong — giving her 
assurance that a way out of her trouble would 
surely be found if she told him all. 

“ What am I to do? ” she cried, looking piteously 
up to him, with shining eyes. “ What am I to do? 
I got a letter from him only on Friday last, telling 
me that he had had a prosperous voyage and had 
just brought his ship safe to Bristol, and that he 
meant to come to me without delay. Oh, sir, ’twas 
only when I had that letter I found that I no 
longer loved him as I did a year ago.” 

“ Is there another man who has come between 
you, my child?” he asked gravely. 

“ Heaven help me ! there is another,” she faltered. 

“ And does he know that you are bound by a 
promise to someone else? If so, believe me he is a 
dishonourable man, and you must dismiss him 
from your thought,” said he. 

She shook her head. 

“ He is an honourable man ; he has never said a 
word of love to me. He knows nothing of my love 
for him. He at least is innocent.” 

“If he be indeed a true man he would, I know, 
give you counsel which I now offer to you; even if 
he suspected — and I cannot but think that if he 
sees you and converses with you, no matter how 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 257 


seldom, he will suspect — the sad truth — he will 
leave your side and so give you an opportunity of 
forgetting him, and all may be well.” 

“ Ah, sir, think you that ? tis so easy to for- 
get? ” 

“ Have you not just given me an instance of it, 
Nelly? But no; I will not think that you have for- 
gotten the one to whom you gave your promise. I 
like rather to believe that that affection remains un- 
changed in your heart, although it be for a while 
obscured. You remember how we lost our way on 
the morning of yesterday? We saw not the shore; 
’twas wreathed in mist; but the solid shore was here 
all the same, and in another hour a break dispersed 
the mist which up till then had been much more 
real to us than the shore; the mist once gone, we 
saw the substance where we had seen the shadow. 
Ah, dear child, how often is not the shadow of a 
love taken for the true — the abiding love itself. 
Now dry your tears and tell me when you expect 
your true lover to come to you.” 

“ He may arrive at any time. He will come by 
the first vessel that leaves Bristol river. He must 
have left already. Oh, that sail out there may be 
carrying him hither — that sail ” 

She stopped suddenly, and made a shade of one 
hand over her eyes while she gazed seaward. After 
a few moments of gazing she sprang to her feet* 
crying : 

“ The boats — you see them out there? What has 
happened that they are flying for the shore? They 
should not be returning until the night.” 

He looked out across the waters and saw the 
whole fleet of fishing smacks making for the shore 
with every sail spread. 

“ Perhaps the boats have been unusually success- 


258 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


ful and thus have no need to tarry on the fishing 
ground,” he suggested. 

She remained with her eyes upon them for a 
long time. A look of bewilderment was upon her 
face while she cried: 

“ Oh, everything is topsy-turvy in these days ! 
Never have I known all the boats to make for the 
shore in such fashion, unless a great storm was to 
windward, and yet now ” 

She caught him by the arm suddenly after she had 
remained peering out to the southern horizon with 
an arched hand over her eyes. 

“ Look there — there ! ” she said in a whisper, 
pointing seaward. “ Tell me what you see there. 
I misdoubt my own eyes. Is there a line of white 
just under the sky? ” 

He followed the direction of her finger. For 
some moments he failed to see anything out of the 
common; the sea horizon was somewhat blurred — 
that was all. But suddenly there came a gleam as 
of the sun quivering upon a thin sword blade of 
white steel out there — it quivered as might a feather 
in the wind. 

“ ? Tis a white wave,” he said. “ See, it has al- 
ready widened. A great wave rolling shoreward.” 

“ List, list,” she whispered. 

He put his hand behind his ear. There came 
through the air the hollow boom of distant thunder, 
or was it the breaking of a heavy sea upon a rocky 
coast? The sound of many waters came fitfully 
landward, and at the same moment a fierce gust of 
wind rushed over the water — they marked its foot- 
steps — it was stamping with the hoofs of a war- 
horse on the surface of the deep as it charged down 
upon the coast. 

Before the two persons on the cliff felt it on their 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 259 


faces, bending their bodies against its force, a wisp 
of mist had come over the sun. Far away there 
was a black cloud — small, but it looked to be dense 
as a cannon ball. She pointed it out, and these 
were her words : 

“ A cannon ball ! — a cannon ball ! ” 

The gust of wind had passed ; they could hear the 
trees of the park complaining at first and then roar- 
ing, with the creaking of branches as it clove its 
way through them. Flocks of sea birds filled the 
air — all were flying inland. Their fitful cries came 
in all notes, from the plaintive whistle of the cur- 
lew and the hoarse shriek of the gull to the bass 
boom of a bittern. 

Then the cannon ball cloud seemed to break into 
pieces in a flame of blue fire, more dazzling than 
any lightning that ever flashed from heaven to 
earth, and at the same instant the sun was blotted 
out, though no cloud had been seen approaching it; 
the pall seemed to have dropped over the disc, not 
to have crept up to it. 

“ A storm is on us,” he said. “ Whither can we 
fly for shelter? ” 

“ The stones of Red Tor,” she replied; “that is 
the nearest place. There is plenty of shelter among 
the stones.” 

“ Come,” he cried, “ there is no moment to be lost. 
Never have I known a storm fall so quickly.” 

She was tarrying on the cliff brow watching the 
progress of the fishing boats. 

“ They will be in safety before disaster can over- 
take them,” she said. 

Then she turned to hasten inland with him ; but a 
sound that seemed to wedge its way, so to speak, 
through the long low boom, with scarcely a quiver 
in it, of the distant thunder, made her look round. 


260 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


She cried out, her finger pointing to a white splash 
under the very blackness of the cloud that now 
covered half the hollow of the sky dome with lead. 

“ Never have I seen the like save only once, while 
the great gale was upon us returning from 
Georgia,” said he. “ ? Tis a waterspout.” 

It was a small spiral that came whirling along 
the surface of the water whence it had sprung, and 
it made a loud hissing sound, with the swish of 
broken water in it. It varied in height from three 
feet to twenty, until it had become a thick pillar of 
molten glass, with branching capitals that broke 
into flakes of sea-foam spinning into the drift. Its 
path through the sea was like the scythe-sweep of a 
hurricane on the shore. Its wake was churned up 
like white curd, and great waves fled from beneath 
its feet. 

Wesley and his companion stood in astonishment, 
watching that wonder. Its course was not directly 
for the cliff where they were standing; but they saw 
that if it reached the shore it would do so a hun- 
dred yards or thereabouts to the westward. 

They were not wrong. It reached the shore not 
farther away from them. It struck the sand where 
the sun had dried it, and in a moment it had scooped 
out a hollow eight or ten feet deep ; then it whirled 
on to the shingle. They heard the noise as of the 
relapse of a great wave among the pebbles, sweep- 
ing them down beneath the scoop of its talons ; only 
now it seemed as if the prow of a frigate had dashed 
into the ridge of pebbles and was pounding its way 
through them. It was a moving pillar of stones 
that struck furiously against the stones of the cliff 
— an avalanche in the air that thundered against 
the brow, breaking away a ton of rock, and turning 
it into an avalanche that slid down to the enormous 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 261 


gap made in the shingle. At the same instant there 
was the roar of a cataract as the whirling flood of 
the waterspout broke high in the air and dropped 
upon the land. It was as if a lake had fallen from 
the skies in a solid mass, carrying everything be- 
fore it. 

It was the girl who had grasped Wesley by the 
arm, forcing him to rush with her to the higher 
ground. Together they ran; but before they 
reached it they were wading and slipping and surg- 
ing through a torrent that overflowed the cliff, and 
poured in the wave of a waterfall over the brink and 
thundered upon the rocks beneath. 

They only paused to take breath when they 
reached the highest ledge of the irregular ground 
beyond the cliff pathway. There w T as a tangle of 
lightning in the air — it fell from a cloud that had 
black flowing fringes, like a horse’s tail trailing be- 
hind it, and it was approaching the shore. They 
fled for the rocks of the Red Tor. 

If he had been alone he never would have reached 
the place. The air was black with rain, and he and 
his companion seemed to be rushing through a cloud 
that had the density of velvet. It was a blind 
flight; but this girl of the coast needed not the 
lightning torch that flared on every side of them to 
guide her. She held his arm, and he suffered him- 
self to be led by her. She even knew where the 
sheltering rocks were to be found ; they had not to 
search for them. At the back of the slight eminence 
that had formed his pulpit, half a dozen basalt 
boulders of unequal size lay tumbled together. Two 
of them were on end and three others lay over them, 
the remaining one lying diagonally across the 
arched entrance to what had the appearance of the 
ruin of a doorway four feet high. The high coarse 


262 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

herbage of the place, with here and there a bramble 
branch, was thick at this place, and if the girl and 
the companions of her childhood had not been ac- 
customed to play their games here, calling the 
hollow between the stones their cave sometimes, 
their palace when it suited them, it would have 
escaped notice. 

She bent her head and crept under the stones of 
the roof, and he followed her. They had a depth of 
scarcely three feet behind them, for the bank of the 
mound against which the stones lay sloped natu- 
rally outward, and the height was not more than 
four feet; but it was a shelter, although they had to 
kneel upon its hard floor. It was a shelter, and 
they had need of one just then. The cloud had 
burst over them just as they reached their hospita- 
ble cleft in the rocks, and the seventh plague of 
Egypt had fallen upon the rude amphitheatre of the 
Red Tor — it was hail mingled with fire ; and when a 
pause came, as it did with a suddenness that was 
more appalling than the violence of the storm, the 
ninth plague was upon them. The darkness might 
have been felt. They could see nothing outside. 
They knew that only ten yards away there was an- 
other pile of rocks with a few stunted trees spring- 
ing from their crevices ; but they could not even see 
this landmark. Farther away, on a small plateau, 
was the celebrated rocking-stone of Red Tor ; but it 
seemed to have been blotted out. They could hear 
the sound of the wind shrieking over the land, mak- 
ing many strange whistlings and moanings through 
the hollows among the stones — they could hear the 
sound of thousands of runnels down the banks, but 
they could see nothing. 

In that awful black pause Wesley began to repeat 
the words of the eighteenth Psalm : 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 2G3 


“ The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my 
deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will 
trust; my buckler, and my high tower. . . . 

“ In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried 
unto my God : he heard my voice out of his temple, 
and my cry before him, even into his ears. 

“ Then the earth shook and trembled ; the founda- 
tions also of the hills moved and were shaken, be- 
cause he was wroth. 

“ There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and 
fire out of his mouth devoured : coals were kindled 
by it. 

“ He bowed the heavens also, and came down : 
and darkness was under his feet. 

“ And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly : yea, he 
did fly upon the wings of the wind. 

“ He made darkness his secret place ; his pavilion 
round about him were dark waters and thick clouds 
of the skies. 

“ At the brightness that was before him his thick 
clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. 

“ The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the 
Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of 
fire. 

“ Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them ; 
and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them. 

“ Then the channels of waters were seen, and the 
foundations of the world were discovered at thy re- 
buke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy 
nostrils. . . . 

“ For thou wilt light my candle : the Lord my 
God will enlighten my darkness.” 

Before he had come to the last stanza the battle 
of the elements had followed the brief truce. 

The first flash was blinding, but before they had 
instinctively put their hands up to their eyes they 


264 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

had seen every twig of the skeleton trees outlined 
against the background of fire — they had seen the 
black bulk of the rocking-stone, and for the first 
time they noticed that it had the semblance of a 
huge hungry beast crouching for a leap. The 
thunder that followed seemed to set the world shak- 
ing with the sway of the rocking-stone when some- 
one had put it in motion. 

“ Is it true? — is it, indeed, true? ” cried the girl 
between the peals of thunder. He felt her hands 
tighten upon his arm. 

“ The Rock of Ages is true,” he said ; but the 
second peal swallowed up his words. 

He heard her voice when the next flash made a 
cleft in the cloud : 

“ Is it true — the prophecy — has it come? ” 

Then he knew what was in her mind. 

“ Do you fear it? ” he cried, and he turned his 
face toward her. Another flaring sword made its 
stroke from the heavens, and by its blaze he saw 
that she was smiling while she shook her head. 

He knew that she had no fear. Across his own 
mind there had flashed the same thought that had 
come to her, taking the form of the question which 
she had put to him : “ Is the prophecy about to be 

realised? ” 

He felt perfectly tranquil in the midst of the 
storm ; and the reflection that the tranquillity of the 
girl was due to his influence was sweet to him. The 
roar of the thunder had become almost continuous. 
They seemed to be the centre of a circle of livid 
flame. The intervals of darkness were less numer- 
ous than those during which the whole sky be- 
came illuminated. The floods came rather more fit- 
fully. For a few minutes at a time it seemed as if 
an ocean had been displaced, as if an ocean had 


*THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 2Go 

been suspended above them, and then suddenly 
dropped with the crash of a waterfall. Immedi- 
ately afterward there would be a complete cessa- 
tion of rain and the crash of waters. The thunder 
sounded very lonely. 

More than once there were intervals of sudden 
clearness in the air. For minutes at a time they 
could see, even after the blinding flash of a javelin 
of lightning, every object outside their sheltering 
place; then suddenly all would be blotted out. At 
such moments it seemed as if the blackness above 
them was solid — a vast mountain of unhewn marble 
falling down upon them. They had the impression 
of feeling the awful weight of its mass beginning to 
crush them. They became breathless — gasping. 

Once a flash fell close to them, and there was a 
noise of splintering wood and the hiss of water 
into which a red-hot bar has been dipped. A sec- 
ond afterward a blazing brand was flung in front 
of them, and the smoke hung dense in the heavy air. 
By the light that was cast around they saw that one 
of the trees growing on the little mound close to 
them had been struck and hurled where it lay. 

It blazed high for a few minutes, and then the 
girl cried out. She had got upon her feet, though 
forced to keep her head bent. He thought that she 
was pointing out to him the thing that had hap- 
pened; but in a moment he perceived that her eyes 
were fixed upon some object beyond the mound that 
had been struck. It was, however, only when the 
next flash came that he saw out there the figure of 
a man — he recognised him : it was Pritchard. 

He stood bareheaded with his sackcloth garment 
clinging to him — the lightning was reflected from 
it as if it had been made of steel, for the water was 
streaming down its folds — on the summit of the 


266 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


rocks that were piled together on the slope of the 
bank not twenty yards away. He was gesticulat- 
ing, but his bare arms were above his head. 

So much Wesley saw in the single glimpse that 
was allowed to him. After the flash the darkness 
swallowed him up once more; but even before the 
next flash came he was visible, though faintly, by 
the light of the blazing tree, for the trunk had not 
fallen directly between where he was standing and 
the shelter. The red light flickered over his body, 
and showed his attitude — his hands were now 
clasped over his head, and he was facing the quarter 
whence the storm was coming. Then there fell 
another torrent of rain and hail, and he was hidden 
by that watery sheet for some minutes. Suddenly, 
as before, the rain ceased, and there was another 
interval of clearness, that showed him standing 
with his arms extended. And when the thunder 
peal rolled away his voice was heard calling out 
passionately, though his words were indistinct ; they 
were smothered in the noise of the thousand tor- 
rents of the Tor. 

In a moment Wesley had pushed himself through 
the opening of his shelter and hurried to his side. 
He eaught him by the arm. 

“ Come ! ” he cried. “ Have you not read, ‘ Thou 
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God ’? Man! is this 
a time to seek destruction? ” 

The man turned upon him. 

“ It has come — it has come — the great and ter- 
rible Day, and I am its prophet ! ” he shouted. “ You 
did not believe me. I was mocked more than any 
prophet; but it has come. All has been fulfilled, 
except calling to the rocks and the mountains. No 
voice has called to them but mine. I have called 
to the rocks to cover me and the hills to hide, but 


>THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 267 

none else. But you will join me — you will add your 
voice to mine that the Scriptures may be fulfilled, 
John Wesley. Call upon them as I do. Fall upon 
us, O rocks — cover us, O hills ! ” 

He stretched out his arms once more and bowed 
his head on every side, shouting out his words, 
amid the blaze of the lightning and the rattle of the 
thunder. 

“Wretch!” cried Wesley, but then he checked 
himself. He had now no doubt that the man had 
become a maniac. “ My poor friend — brother — let 
me be your guide at this time. Let us talk over 
the matter together. There is a place of safety at 
hand.” 

“What, you, John Wesley, talk of safety; know 
you not in this dread hour that the Scripture must 
be fulfilled? ” shouted the man. “What will your 
judgment be who would make the Holy Writ to be 
a vain thing? I tell you, sir, that it will be a lie 
if you do not join with me in calling upon the rocks 
to fall upon us? This is the place that was 
prophesied of — these are the very rocks — yonder 
are the very hills. They will not move — they must 
be stubborn until another voice be joined with mine. 
O rocks, fall — fall — fall ! ” 

Wesley grasped one of the frantic arms that were 
outstretched. He could not temporise with the 
wretch again. 

“You shall not dare!” he cried. “I may not 
stand by and hear such a mockery.” 

The man wrenched his arm free. 

“ The mockery is yours, sir,” he shouted. “ You 
will not save the truth of the Scriptures when it is 
left for you to do so. Think of your own condemna- 
tion, man — think that there are only two of us here, 
and if we remain silent we are guilty of blasphemy, 


268 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


for we are preventing the fulfilment of this 
prophecy.” 

A discharge of lightning that had the semblance 
of a pair of fiery fetters went from hill to hill, and 
when Wesley recovered the use of his eyes he saw 
that the man was pointing to the slight eminence on 
which the rocking-stone was poised. 

“ It has been shown to me — thank God that it has 
been shown to me before ’tis too late,” he cried. 
“If you, John Wesley, refuse to aid me, power shall 
be given me alone to fulfil the Scriptures. The 
rocks shall obey me. I am the chosen vessel.” 

A torrent of rain swept between them, with the 
sound of a huge wave striking upon the flat face of 
a cliff. Wesley spread out his arms. One of them 
was grasped by the girl, who had crept to his side, 
and he felt himself guided back to the shelter. 

He lay back upon the sloping rock thoroughly 
exhausted, and closed his eyes. 

A minute had passed before he opened them 
again, hearing the girl cry out. 

Another of the comparatively clear intervals 
had come, and it was sufficient to show the great 
rocking-stone in motion and the figure that was 
swaying it. To and fro it went on its heels’ keel, 
the man making frantic efforts to increase the depth 
to which it rose and fell. To and fro, to and fro it 
swayed, and every fall was deeper than the last, 
until at last it was swinging so that the side almost 
touched the rock beyond. The man thrust his 
shoulder beneath the shoulder of the moving mass 
of stone, pushing it back every time it bowed toward 
him. Never before had it swung like this. At last 
it staggered on to the edge of the cup on which it 
was poised — staggered, but recovered itself and 
slipped into its place again. It swung back and 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 269 


jerked out of the cup as before. One more swing, 
with the man flinging his whole weight upon it ; for 
a second it trembled on the edge of the hollow ful- 
crum, and then — it failed to return. It toppled 
slowly over upon the granite rock. For a moment 
its descent was retarded by the man, who was 
crushed like a walnut beneath it, then with a crash 
of broken crags it fell over the brink of the height 
to the ground, fifteen feet beneath. 

Wesley left the girl with her hands pressed 
against her eyes and hurried to the fallen mass. A 
man’s hand projected from beneath it — nothing 
more. But for this it would have been impossible 
to say that a body was beneath it. The mighty 
stone did not even lie flat on the ground; it had 
made a hollow for itself in the soft earth. It had 
buried itself to the depth of a foot, and beneath 
its base Pritchard lay buried. 


CHAPTER XXII 


Not until the afternoon had the storm moderated 
sufficiently to allow of Wesley and his companion 
returning to Porthawn. For a full hour after the 
fall of the rocking-stone they remained together in 
the shelter. They were both overcome by the horror 
of what they had witnessed. Happily the charred 
crown of branches which remained on the tree that 
had been struck down, after the rain had extin- 
guished the blaze, was enough to hide the fallen 
stone, and that ghastly white thing that lay thrust 
out from beneath it like a splash of lichen frayed 
from the crag. But for another hour the tempest 
continued, only with brief intervals, when a dense 
and smoky greyness took the place of the blackness. 
It seemed as if the storm could not escape from 
the boundary of the natural amphitheatre in the 
centre of which was the mound which Wesley had 
used as his pulpit ; and to that man whose imagina- 
tion was never a moment inactive, the whole scene 
suggested a picture which he had once seen of the 
struggle of a thousand demons of the Pit, around a 
sanctified place, for the souls of those who were safe 
within the enclosure. There were the swirling 
black clouds every one of which let loose a fiery 
flying bolt, while the winds yelled horribly as any 
fiends that might be struggling with obscene tooth 
and claw, to crush the souls that were within the 
sacred circle. The picture had, he knew, been an 
allegory; he wondered if it were not possible that 
certain scenes in Nature might be equally allegori- 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 271 


cal. He hoped that he was not offending when he 
thought of this citadel of his faith — this pulpit from 
which he had first preached in Cornwall — being 
assailed by the emissaries of the Arch-enemy, and 
yet remaining unmoved as a tower built to with- 
stand every assault of the foe. 

The whole scene assumed in his imagination a 
series of fierce assaults, in all of which the enemy 
was worsted and sent flying over the plain; he 
could hear the shrieks of the disappointed fiends — 
the long wail of the wounded that followed every 
impulse ; and then, after a brief interval, there came 
the renewed assault — the circling tumult seeking 
for a vulnerable point of entrance. But there it 
stood, that pulpit from whose height he had 
preached the Gospel to the thousands who had come 
to hear him, and had gone forth to join the forces 
that are evermore at conflict with the powers of 
evil in the world. There stood his pulpit unmoved 
in the midst of the tumult. He accepted the sym- 
bolism, and he was lifted up by the hope that his 
work sent forth from this place would live un- 
touched by the many conflicts of time. 

He was able to speak encouraging words to his 
companion every time the thunder passed away; 
and he was more than ever conscious of the happi- 
ness of having her near to him at this time. He 
knew that he had loved her truly ; for his love had 
been true enough and strong enough to compel him 
to give her the advice that precluded his ever being 
able to tell her of his own feeling for her. The joy 
of her gracious companionship was not for him; 
but he would do all that in him lay to assure her 
happiness. 

He knew that he was able to soothe her now that 
she had received a shock that would have been too 


272 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


much for most women. The horror of the mode of 
the man’s death, quite apart from the terror of the 
tempest, was enough to prostrate any ordinary man 
or woman. It was very sweet to him to feel her 
cling to his arm when they crawled back to their 
shelter. He laid his hand tenderly upon the hand 
that clasped him, and he refrained from saying a 
word to her at that moment. When the storm had 
moderated in some measure he spoke to her; and 
he was too wise to make any attempt to turn her 
thoughts from the tragedy which, he knew, could 
not possibly fade from her mind even with the lapse 
of years. 

“ He predicted truly so far as he himself was con- 
cerned,” he said gravely. “ The end came for him 
as he said. Poor wretch ! He may have possessed 
all his life a curious sense beyond that allowed to 
others — an instinct — it may not have been finer 
than the instinct of a bird. I have read that one of 
the desert birds will fly an hundred miles to where 
a camel has fallen by the way. The camel itself 
has, we are told, an instinct that guides it to water. 
But I do not say that he was not an agent of evil. 
There is evidence to prove that sorcery can give the 
power to predict what seems to be the truth, but 
it is only a juggling of the actual truth. The man- 
ner of that poor wretch’s death makes one feel sus- 
picious. He predicted the end of the world; well, 
the world came to an end, so far as he was con- 
cerned. You perceive the jugglery? But his was 
a weak mind. He may have been lured on to his 
own destruction. However this may be, his end 
was a terrible one. I grieve that it was left for us 
to witness it.” 

She shook her head. 

“ I shall never forget to-day,” she said. “ I had 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 273 


a feeling more than once when the lightning was 
brighter than common, and the world seemed to 
shake under the rattle of the thunderclap, that the 
next moment would be the last.” 

“ There was no terror on your face — I saw it 
once under the fiercest flash,” said he. 

“ At first — ah, I scarce know how I felt,” said 
she. “ But when I heard your words saying, ‘ Rock 
of Ages/ my fear seemed to vanish.” 

“ The lines ring with the true confidence that only 
the true Rock of Ages can inspire,” said he. 

And thus he gradually led her thoughts away 
from the ghastly thing that she had seen, though 
he had begun talking to her about it. At this time 
the storm, which had been hurtling around the brim 
of the huge basin of the valley, had succeeded in its 
Titanic efforts to free itself from whatever influence 
it was held it fettered within the circle ; and though 
the rain continued, there was only an occasional 
roll of thunder. The roar that now filled the valley 
was that of the sea. It came to them after the 
storm like the voice of an old friend shouting to 
them to be of good cheer. 

And all that the preacher said to her was founded 
upon the text that the sea shouted for them to 
hear. For a time at least the horror that she had 
looked upon passed out of her mind ; and when he 
pointed out to her that the rain had almost ceased, 
she suffered herself to be led away from their place 
of shelter by the further side of the central mound, 
without straining her eyes to see where the rock- 
ing-stone lay; she had not even a chance of noting 
the strangeness brought about by the disappear- 
ance of a landmark that she had seen since she was 
a child. But as they walked rapidly toward the 
little port, a cold fear took hold of her. 


274 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Can a single cottage remain after such a storm 
— can anyone be left alive? ” she cried, and he saw 
that the tears were on her face. 

“ Do not doubt it,” he said. “ To doubt it were 
to doubt the goodness of God. Some men are com- 
ing toward us. I have faith that they bring us good 
news.” 

Within a few minutes they saw that it was Mr. 
Hartwell and two of his men who had come in 
search of Wesley. Before they met, Nelly had 
asked how the port had fared — the boats, what of 
the boats? 

“ All's well,” was the response, and her hands 
clasped themselves in joy and gratitude. 

Never had such a tempest been thrown on the 
coast, Hartwell said, but absolutely no damage had 
been done to building, boat, or human being. Some 
trees had been struck by the lighting in the out- 
skirts of the park, and doubtless others had suffered 
further inland; but the fishing boats having had 
signs of the approach of the storm, had at once 
made for the shore, and happily were brought to the 
leeward of the little wharf before the first burst 
had come. 

When he had told his tale he enquired if either 
of them had seen anything of Pritchard. 

“ He appeared suddenly where we saw him yes- 
terday,” he continued, “ and his cry was that we 
should join him in calling upon the rocks to fall 
on us. He would not be persuaded to take shelter, 
and he was seen to wander into what seemed to be 
the very heart of the storm.” 

Wesley shook his head, and told his story. 

The man whose prophecy of the end of the world 
had spread within certain limits a terror that was 
recalled by many firesides, and formed a landmark 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 275 


in the annals of two generations, was the only one 
who perished in the great thunderstorm, which un- 
doubtedly took place within a day or two of the 
date assigned by him to see the destruction of the 
world. 

John Wesley had no choice left him in the matter. 
His host insisted on his going into a bed that had 
been made as warm as his copper pan of charcoal 
could make it, after partaking of a spiced posset 
compounded in accordance with a recipe that was 
guaranteed to prevent the catching of a cold, no 
matter how definitely circumstances conspired in 
favour of a cold. 

His garments had become sodden with rain from 
the waterspout at the outset of the storm, and he 
had been forced to sit for several hours in the same 
clothes. He could not hope to escape a cold unless 
by the help of this famous posset, the housekeeper 
affirmed ; and she was amazed to find him absolutely 
docile in this matter. She had been voluble in her 
entreaties; but she came to the conclusion that she 
might have spared herself half her trouble ; she had 
taken it for granted that she was talking to an ordi- 
nary man, who would scoff at the virtues of her 
posset, and then make all his friends miserable by 
his complaints when he awoke with a cold on him. 
Mr. Wesley was the only sensible man she had ever 
met, she declared to her master, with the sinister 
expression of a hope that his example of docility 
would not be neglected by others. 

He went to bed, and after listening for some 
hours to the roaring of the sea, he fell asleep. The 
evening had scarcely come, but he had never felt 
wearier in all his life. 

He slept for eight hours, and when he awoke he 
knew that he had done well to yield, without the 


276 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


need for persuasion, to tlie advice of the house- 
keeper. He felt refreshed in every way; and after 
lying awake for an hour, he arose, dressed himself, 
and left the house. This impulse to take a mid- 
night walk was by no means unusual with him. He 
had frequently found himself the better for an hour 
or two spent in the darkness, especially beside the 
sea. Midnight was just past. If he were to remain 
in the air for some time, he might, he thought, be 
able to sleep until break fast- time. 

The night was cool, without being cold, and there 
was a sweet freshness in the air which had cer- 
tainly been wanting when he had walked along the 
cliffs in the afternoon. The thunderstorm did not 
seem at that time to have cleared the atmosphere. 
He was rather surprised to find that there was such 
a high sea rolling at this time, and he came to the 
conclusion that there had been a gale while he was 
asleep. Clouds were still hiding the sky, but they 
held no rain. 

He shunned the cliff track, going in the opposite 
direction, which led him past the village, and on to 
the steep sandy bay with its occasional little pe- 
ninsulas of high rocks, the surfaces of which were 
not covered even by Spring tides. Very quiet the 
little port seemed at this hour. Not a light was in 
any window — not a sound came from any of the cot- 
tages. He stood for a long time on the little wharf 
looking at the silent row of cottages. That one 
which had the rose-bush trained over the porch was 
the home of the Polwheles, he knew, and he re- 
mained with his eyes fixed upon it. It seemed as 
if this had been the object of his walk — to stand 
thus in front of that house, as any youthful 
lover might stand beneath the lattice that he 
loved. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 27T 


He had his thoughts to think, and he found that 
this was the time to think them. They were all 
about the girl who slept beyond that window. He 
wondered if he had ever loved her before this mo- 
ment. If he had really loved her, how was it that 
he had never before been led to this place to watch 
the house where she lay asleep? Was it possible 
that he had fancied he knew her before he had 
passed those hours with her when the storm was 
raging around them? He felt that without this 
experience he could not possibly have known what 
manner of girl she was. 

And now that he had come to know her the 
knowledge came to him with the thought that she 
was not for him. 

He had set out in the morning feeling that per- 
haps he had been too hasty in coming to the con- 
clusion that because, when far away from her he 
had been thinking a great deal of his own loneliness 
and the joy that her companionship would bring 
to him, he loved her. That was why he had wished 
to put himself to the test, and he had fancied that 
he was doing so when he had walked in the opposite 
direction to that in which the village lay so that 
he might avoid the chance of meeting her. 

But in spite of his elaborate precautions — he 
actually thought that it had shown ingenuity on 
his part — he had met her, and he had learned with- 
out putting the question to her that she was not 
for him. He recalled what his feeling had been 
at that moment. He had fancied that he knew all 
that her words meant to him; but he had deceived 
himself; it was only now that he knew exactly the 
measure of what they meant to him. It seemed 
to him that he had known nothing of the girl before 
he had passed those dark hours by her side. 


278 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


At that time it was as if all the world had been 
blotted out, only he and she being left alone. 

This feeling he now knew was what was meant 
by loving — this feeling that there was nothing left 
in the world — that nothing mattered so long as he 
and she were together — that death itself would be 
welcome if only it did not sunder them. 

And he had gained that knowledge only to know 
that they were to be sundered. 

It was a bitter thought, and for a time, as he 
stood there with his eyes fixed upon the cottage, 
he felt as if so far as he was concerned the world 
had come to an end. The happiness which he had 
seen before him as plainly as if it had been a 
painted picture — a picture of the fireside in the 
home that he hoped for — had been blotted out from 
before his eyes, and in its stead there was a blank. 
It did not matter how that blank might be filled 
in, it would never contain the picture that had 
been torn away from before him when she had of 
her own free will told him the story of her love. 

He felt the worst that any man can feel, for the 
worst comes only when a man cries out to himself : 

“ Too late — too late ! ” 

He was tortured by that perpetual question of 
“Why? Why? Why?” 

Why had he not come to Cornwall the previous 
year? Why had he not seen her before she had 
gone to Bristol and given her promise to the other 
man? 

But this was only in the floodtide of his bitter- 
ness; after a space it subsided. More reasonable 
thoughts came to him. Who was he that he should 
rail against what had been ordered by that Heaven 
in whose ordering of things he had often expressed 
his perfect faith? What would he say of any man 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 279 


who should have such rebellious thoughts? Could 
this be the true love — this that made him rebel 
against the decree of an all-wise Providence? If 
it was true it would cause him to think not of his 
own happiness, but of hers. 

Had he been thinking all the time of his own 
happiness? he asked himself. Had she been denied 
to him on this account? He feared that it was so. 
He recalled how he had been thinking of her, and 
he had many pangs of self-reproach when he re- 
membered how in all the pictures of the future that 
his imagination had drawn he was the central fig- 
ure. He felt that his aim had been an ignoble one. 
Selfishness had been the foundation of his love, 
and therefore he deserved the punishment that had 
fallen upon him. 

He continued his walk and went past the cot- 
tage on which his eyes had lingered. For a mile 
he strolled, lost in thought along the sandy bay, 
disturbing the sea birds that were wading about 
the shallow pools in search of shell fish. The tide 
was on the ebb and he walked down the little ridges 
of wet beach until he found himself at the edge of 
that broad grey sea that sent its whispering ripples 
to his feet. He had always liked to stand thus in 
winter as well as summer. Within an hour of 
dawn the sea seemed very patient. It was waiting 
for what was to come — for the uprising of the sun 
to turn its grey into gold. 

He never failed to learn the lesson of the sea in 
all its moods; and now he felt strengthened by 
looking out to the eastern sky, though it was still 
devoid of light. He would have patience. He 
would wait and have faith. Light was coming to 
the world, and happy was the one to whom was 


280 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

given the mission of proclaiming that dawn — the 
coming of the Light of the World. 

Even when he resumed his stroll after he had 
looked across the dun waters he became conscious 
of a change in the eastern sky. The clouds that 
still clung to that quarter were taking on to them- 
selves the pallor of a pearl, and the sky edge of 
the sea was lined with the tender glaze that ap- 
pears on the inner surface of a white shell, and its 
influence was felt upon the objects of the coast. 
The ridges of the peninsular rocks glimmered, and 
the outline of the whole coast became faintly seen. 
It was coming — the dawn for which the world was 
waiting was nigh. The doubts born of the night 
were ready to fly away as that great heron which 
rose in front of him fled with winnowing wings 
across the surface of the sea. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


The first faint breath of the dawn — that sigh of 
light of which the air was scarcely conscious — made 
him aware as he walked along the sands of the fact 
that the beach was strewn with wreckage. He 
found himself examining a broken spar upon which 
he had struck his foot. Further on he stumbled 
over a hen-coop, and then again a fragment that 
looked like the cover of a hatchway. 

He had heard nothing about a vessePs having 
come ashore during the tempest of the morning; 
but there was nothing remarkable in the sudden 
appearing of wreckage on this wild Cornish coast. 
Almost every tide washed up something that had 
once been part of a gallant ship. Wreckage came 
without anyone hearing of the wreck from which it 
had come. He examined the broken spar, and his 
fancy showed him the scene at the foundering of 
such a ship as the Gloriana , whose carcase had 
been so marvellously uncovered on the Sunday 
evening. He had had enough experience of sea- 
faring to be able to picture the details of the wreck- 
age of such a ship. 

He left the beach and went on to the ascent of 
the higher part of the shore, thinking that it might 
be that when the dawn strengthened it might reveal 
the shape of some craft that had run ashore on the 
outer reef at this dangerous part of the coast; and 
even before he reached the elevated ground the 
dawn light had spread its faint gauze over the sea, 
and the shapes of the rocks were plain. He looked 
281 


282 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


out carefully, scanning the whole coast, but he 
failed to see any wreck between the horns of the 
bay. 

But when he had continued his slow walk for a 
few hundred yards he fancied that he saw some 
objects that looked dark against the pale sands. 
At first he thought that he was looking at a rock 
that had some resemblance to the form of a man; 
but a movement of a portion of the object showed 
that it was indeed a man who was standing there. 

Wesley had no mind for a companion on this 
stroll of his, so he went a short way inland in order 
to save himself from being seen, and he did not 
return to the sandy edge of the high ground until 
he judged that he had gone beyond the spot where 
he had seen the man. Turning about, he found 
that he had done what he intended : he saw the dark 
figure walking from where he had been, in the 
direction of the sea. 

But by this time the light had so increased that 
he was able to see that the man was walking away 
from the body of another that was lying on the 
beach. 

He had scarcely noticed this before the man 
stopped, looked back, and slowly returned to the 
body. But the moment he reached it Wesley was 
amazed to see him throw up his arms as if in sur- 
prise and then fling himself down on the body with 
his hands upon its throat. 

Wesley knew nothing except that the man’s at- 
titude was that of one who was trying to strangle 
another. But this was surely enough. He shouted 
out and rushed toward the place with a menace. 

The man was startled; his head went back with 
a jerk, but his hands did not leave the other’s throat. 
Wesley had to drag him back by the collar, and 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 283 


even then he did not relax his hold until the body 
had been lifted up into a sitting position. The 
moment the man’s fingers were loosed the head 
fell back upon the sand. 

Wesley threw himself between the two, and the 
instant that he turned upon the assailant he 
recognised John Bennet. 

“Wretch!” he cried, “what is it that you 
would do? What is it that you have done — 
murderer? ” 

Bennet stared at him as if stupefied. Then he 
burst into a laugh, but stopped himself suddenly. 

“ Mr. Wesley, is it? ” he cried. “ Oh, sir, is’t 
you indeed that pulls my hands off his throat? 
There is something for the Devil to laugh at in 
that.” 

“ Man, if you be a man and not a fiend, 
would you strangle one whom the sea has already 
drowned?” cried Wesley. 

“ I have the right,” shouted Bennet, “ for he 
would be dead by now if I had not succoured 
him.” 

“ If it be true that you saved him from an im- 
minent death, at that time, wherefore should you 
strive to murder him now? ” said Wesley. 

“ I did not see his face then — it was dark when 
I stumbled on him. Only when I turned about 
when the dawn broke I saw who he was. Go your 
ways, Mr. Wesley. The man is mine by every law 
of fair play. Stand not between us, sir, or you 
shall suffer for it.” 

“ Monster, think you that I shall obey you while 
a breath remains in my body? I shall withstand 
you to the death, John Bennet; you shall have two 
murders laid at your door instead of one.” 

The man laughed as before. Then he said : 


284 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ That is the point where the devils begin to 
laugh — ho ! ho ! John Wesley ! ” 

“ I have heard one of them,” said Wesley. 

“ Oh, you fool, to stay my hand ! Know you not 
that the man lying there is none other than he 
whom Nelly Polwhele has promised to marry?” 

“ And is not that a sufficient reason why you 
should do your best to save him — not take his life 
away? ” 

For more than a minute the man was too aston- 
ished to speak. At last he said: 

“ Is it that you are mad, John Wesley? Heard 
you not what I said? ” 

“ Every word,” replied Wesley. 

“ You cannot have taken in my words,” the other 
whispered. “ Think, sir, that is the foolish thing 
that stands between you and her — you love her — 
I have seen that.” 

“And I stand between you and him — that is 
enough for the present moment,” said Wesley 
quickly, facing the man, whom he noticed sidling 
round ready to leap upon the body lying on the 
beach. 

Bennet saw that his cunning was overmatched. 

“ Fool ! I cry again,” he said in a low tone. 
“ Would not I slay a score such as you and he for 
her sake? A man’s soul can only be lost once, and 
I am ready to go to perdition for her — I have 
counted the cost. The best of the bargain is with 
me ! Out of my way, sir — out of my way ! ” 

He took a few steps back, preparing to rush at 
the other. Wesley kept his eyes upon him and 
stood with his feet firmly planted to stand against 
his violence. But before the man could make his 
rush there was sudden flash of light in his face, 
dazzling him and Wesley as well. The light shifted 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 285 


about for a few moments and Wesley turned to see 
whence it came. There was the sound of a hard 
boot on the pebbles and a man’s voice said : 

“ Avast there ! Don’t move a hand. I have a 
pistol covering ye, and a cutlash is in my belt.” 

“ You have come in good time, whoever you be,” 
said Wesley. “ But you will have no need to use 
your weapons, sir.” 

“ Ay, ay, but if there’s a move between ye, my 
gentlemen, I’ll make spindrift o’ your brains. Ye 
hear?” was the response. 

The man, who had flashed his lantern upon them 
— the dawn was still very faint — came beside them, 
and showed that he had not made an empty boast. 
Wesley perceived that he was one of the Preventive 
men, fully armed. 

He kept the blaze of his lantern on Rennet’s 
face and then turned it on Wesley, whom he ap- 
peared to recognise. 

“ In Heaven’s name, sir, what’s this? ” he cried. 

“ Take no thought for us,” said Wesley. “ Here 
lies a poor wretch washed ashore. Give me your 
help to bring back life to him. No moment must 
be lost — the loss of a minute may mean the loss 
of his life.” 

He was already kneeling beside the prostrate 
figure. The Preventive man followed his example. 
They both exclaimed in one voice: 

“ He is alive ! ” 

“ God be thanked,” said Wesley solemnly. “ I 
feared ” 

“ You have treated him witli skill, sir,” said 
the man. “You did not give him a dram?” 

“ I have only been here a few minutes; the saving 
of him from drowning is not due to me,” said 
Wesley. 


286 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The man had his ration of rum in his knapsack, 
and was administering it, Bennet standing by 
without a word. 

“ We must get help to carry him to the nearest 
house,” said the Preventive man. 

“ I shall hasten to the village,” said Wesley. But 
he suddenly checked himself. He knew that Ben- 
net’s cunning would be equal to such a device as 
to get rid of the revenue officer for the few minutes 
necessary to crush the life out of the man on the 
sand. “ No, on second thought yonder man — his 
name is Bennet — will do this duty. John Bennet, 
you will hasten to the nearest house — any house 
save Polwffiele’s — and return with at least two of 
the fishermen. They will come hither with two 
oars and a small sail — enough sailcloth to make 
into a hammock for the bearing of the man with 
ease. You will do my bidding.” 

“ I will do your bidding,” said Bennet after a 
pause, and forthwith he hurried away. 

“ What is all this, sir? ” asked the man in a low 
tone when he had gone. “ I heard your voice and 
his — he is half a madman — they had the sound of 
a quarrel.” 

“ You arrived in good time, friend,” said Wesley. 
“ You say this man was treated with skill in his 
emergency; if so, it must be placed to the credit 
of John Bennet. I can say so much, but no 
more.” 

“ I’ll ask no more from you, sir,” said the other, 
slowly and suspiciously. “ But if I heard of Ben- 
net’s murdering a man I would believe it sooner 
than any tale of his succouring one. He is a bit 
loose in the hatches, as the saying is; I doubt if 
lie will bear your message, sir.” 

“ I shall make this sure by going myself,” said 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 287 


Wesley. “I am of no help here; yon have dealt 
with the half drowned before now.” 

“ A score of times — and another score to the 
back of the first,” said the man. “ I tell you this 
one is well on the mend. But a warm blanket will 
be more to him than an anker of Jamaica rum. 
You do well to follow Bennet. Would the loan of 
a pistol be of any confidence to you in the job? ” 

“ There will be no need for such now, even if I 
knew how to use one,” said Wesley. 

He perceived that the man had his suspicions. 
He hurried away when he had reached the track 
above the shingle. 

It was quite light before he reached the nearest 
cottage, which stood about a hundred yards east 
of the Port Street, and belonged to a fisherman 
and boatwright named Garvice. The men and his 
sons had their tar-pot on the brazier and had 
already begun work on a dinghy which lay keel 
uppermost before them. 

They looked with surprise at him when he asked 
if they had been long at work. 

“ On’y a matter o’ quartern hour,” replied the 
old man. 

“ Then you must have seen John Bennet and got 
his message? ” said Wesley. 

“ Seen John Bennet? Ay, ay — still mad. Mes- 
sage? No message i’ the world. What message 
’ud a hare-brainer like to ’un bear to folk wi’ the 
five senses o’ Golmighty complete?” the old man 
enquired. 

“ Do you tell me that Bennet said naught to you 
about a half-drowned man needing your help? ” 
asked Wesley. 

“No word. Even if so rigid a madman ha’ car- 
ried that tale think ye we’d be here the now? ” 


288 THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 


“ ’Tis as well that I came, though I thought it 
cruel to distrust him,” said Wesley. 

He then told the man what was needed, and be- 
fore he had spoken a dozen words the old man had 
thrown down his tar-brush and was signalling his 
sons to run down one of the boats to the water. 

“ Paddle round in half the time takes t’ walk,” 
he said. “ No back breaking no bone shakin’ ’s 
my morter. Down she goes.” 

Wesley was glad to accept a seat in the stern 
sheets of the small boat which was run down to 
the water, not twenty yards from the building 
shed; and when he returned with the three boat- 
men to that part of the coast from which he had 
walked, he found the man to whose aid he had come 
sitting up and able to say a word or two to the 
revenue man, who was kneeling beside him, having 
just taken his empty rum bottle from his mouth. 

Old Garvice looked as if he felt that he had been 
brought from his work under false pretences. He 
plodded slowly across the intervening piece of 
beach a long way behind Mr. Wesley, and the Pre- 
ventive man had reported the progress to recovery 
made by the other before the Garvice family had 
come up. The Garvices had had more than a nod- 
ding acquaintance with the revenue authorities 
before this morning. 

“ John Bennet is a bigger rascal than I thought, 
and that’s going far,” said the Preventive man 
when Wesley told him that no message had been 
given at the Port. “ If I come face to face with 
him, them that’s nigh will see some blood-letting. 
Why, e’en Ned Garvice, that I’ve been trying to 
lay a trap for this twelve year, lets bygones be 
bygones when there’s a foundered man to suc- 
cour.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 289 


“Where is ’un? ” enquired the old man with 
pointed satire, looking round with a blank face. 

The bedraggled man sitting on the beach was 
able to smile. 

“ Wish I’d had the head to bid you ask Neddy 
Garvice to carry hither a bottle of his French 
brandy — ay, the lot that you run ashore when the 
cutter fouled on the bank,” said the Preventive man. 

“ Oh, that lot? Had I got a billet from you, 
Freddy Wise, I’d ha’ put a stoup from the kegs 
o’ the Gorgon into my pocket,” said the old man 
wickedly. Mr. Wesley did not know that the Gor- 
gon was a large ship that had come ashore the 
previous year, and had been stripped bare by the 
wreckers. “ Oh, ay ; the Gorgon for brandy and the 
Burglar master for schnapps, says I, and I sticks 
to that object o’ creed, Freddy, whatsoe’er you 
says.” The Bourghermeistcr was the name of an- 
other wreck whose stores the revenue men had 
been too slow to save some years before. 

But while these pleasantries were being ex- 
changed between the men Wesley was looking at 
the one in whose interests he was most concerned. 
He was lying with his head supported by a crag on 
which Fred Wise had spread his boat cloak. His 
face was frightfully pallid, and his forehead was 
like wax, only across his temple there was a long 
ugly gash, around which the blood had coagulated. 
His eyes were closed except at intervals when he 
started, and they opened suddenly and began to 
stare rather wildly. His arms hung down and his 
hands were lying limp on the beach palms up, 
suggesting the helplessness of a dead man. He 
was clearly a large and strongly built fellow, who 
could sail a ship and manage a crew, using his 
head as well as his hands. 


290 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


The others were looking at him critically ; he was 
so far recovered that they did not seem to think 
there was any imperative need for haste in the 
matter of carrying him to a bed; although they 
criticised him as if he were dead. 

“ Worser lads ha’ gone down and heard of for 
nevermore,” said the old fisherman. “ Did he 
know that Squire Trevelyan buries free of all duty 
all such as the sea washes up Tween tides? That’s 
the ’vantage to be drowned on these shores; but 
the Squire keeps that knowledge like a solemn se- 
cret; fears there’d be a rush — they’d be jammin’ 
one t’other amongst crags as for who’d come fore- 
most to his own funeral.” 

“ Tis no secret o’ gravity, Ned Garvice, that you 
give orders to your boys to carry you down in the 
cool o’ the evening when you feel your hour’s at 
hand, and lay ye out trim and tidy for the flood- 
tide, so that ye get a free funeral, and Parson Rod- 
ney’s 6 Earth t’ earth ’ thrown into the bargain,” 
said Wise. 

“ I’ve learned my sons to honour their father, 
and it puts ’un back a long way in their ’struction 
to be face to face wi’ ’un as has a hardened scoff for 
his grey hairs,” said the fisherman. “ Go your ways, 
lads, and gather limpits so ye hear not evil words 
that shake your faith in your ancient father. But 
what I can’t see is how he got them finger-marks 
on his neck.” 

He pointed to the man on the beach. 

“ They ha’ the aspect o’ finger marks, now ha’ 
they not, sir? ” said Wise meaningly, turning to 
Wesley. 

“ My thought, friends, amounts to this : I have 
heard that in cases of rescue from drowning quick- 
ness is most needful for the complete restoration of 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 291 

the sufferer,” said Wesley. “ Now, sirs, I ask you 
is this the moment for light gossip, when yonder 
poor fellow lies as if he had not an hour’s life in 
his body? ” 

“ There’s summat i’ that, too,” said old Garvice, 
as if a matter which he had been discussing had 
suddenly been presented to him in an entirely new 
light. 

“ Oh, sir,” said the Preventive man, “ when a 
corpse has revived so far ’tis thought best that he 
should have a short rest; it kind o’ way knits the 
body and soul together all the closer. The man 
is in no danger now, I firmly believe; but, as you 
say, there’s no need for wasting any more time. 
Give us a heave under his other armpit, my lad. 
Heave handsomely ; there’s naught but a thin half- 
hour ’twixt him and eternity — mind that, and you 
won’t jerk. Who’s for his heels? ” 

The elder of Garvice’s sons — a big lad of twenty 
— obeyed the instructions of the revenue man, and 
Wesley and the old fisherman went to the feet. 

“’Vast hauling! Set me up on end,” said the 
man over whom they were bending. He spoke in 
a low voice and weak; he did not seem to have 
sufficient breath to make himself heard. 

“ Hear that?” said the fisherman with a saga- 
cious wink. “ There’s the lightsome and blithe 
quarter-deck voice o’ your master-mariner when 
warping into dock and his missus a-waitin’ for ’un 
rosy as silk on the pier-head. ’Tis then that if so 
be that a man’s genteel, it will out.” 

“ ’Vast jaw, my hearty ! ” murmured the man 
wearily. 

“ That’s the tone that fills the air wi’ th’ smell 
o’ salt beef for me whene’er I hears ’un — ay, sirs, 
salt beef more lifelike and lively than this high 


292 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 

ship-master who I trow hath ofttimes watched a 
ration toddle round the cuddy table like to a 
guileless infant.” 

“ Heave all, with a will ! ” cried Wise, and the 
four men raised the other as tenderly as a bulk 
so considerable could be taken off the ground, and 
bore him with some staggering and heavy breathing, 
down to where the youngest of the Garvice family 
was keeping the dinghy afloat over the rapidly shal- 
lowing sand. 

An hour later, when the day was still young, 
Wesley was kneeling by his bedside giving thanks 
to Heaven for having allowed him to participate in 
the privilege of saving a fellow-creature from death. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


He slept for an hour or two, but awoke feeling 
strangely unrefreshed. But he joined Hartwell at 
breakfast and heard the news that the latter had 
acquired during his usual half-hour’s stroll through 
the village. 

After shaking his guest warmly by the hand, 
Hartwell cried : 

“ What, Mr. Wesley, w T as it that you did not be- 
lieve you had adventure enough for one Summer’s 
day, that you must needs fare forth in search of 
others before sunrise? ” 

Wesley laughed. 

“ I ventured nothing, my good friend,” he said. 
“ I came upon the shipwrecked man by the blessing 
of God, in good time. I have been wondering since 
I rose if he had suffered shipwreck. Did you learn 
so much at the village — and pray hath he fully 
recovered himself? ” 

“ I dare not say fully, but he has recovered him- 
self enough to be able to tell his story,” replied 
Hartwell. 

“ And he was wrecked? ” 

“ Only swamped at sea. He is a ship-master, 
Snowdon, by name, but ’twas not his own craft that 
went down, but only a miserable coasting ketch 
that ventured from Bristol port to Poole with a 
cargo of pottery — something eminently sinkable. 
Strange to say, Captain Snowdon set out from 
Bristol, wanting to go no further than our own 
port; for why? you ask. Why, sir, for a true 

293 


294 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


lover’s reason, which may be reckoned by some folk 
as no reason at all — namely a hope to get speedily 
by the side of his mistress, this lady being none 
other than our friend, the pretty and virtuous 
young woman known as Nelly Polwhele.” 

“Ah! Nelly Polwhele? ” 

“None other, sir. It seems that Nelly met this 
good master-mariner a year ago at Bristol, and 
following the usage of all our swains, he falls 
in love with her. And she, contrary to her usage 
of the stay-at-home swains who piped to her, re- 
plies with love for love. But a long voyage loomed 
before him, so after getting her promise, he sails 
for the China Seas and the coast of the Great 
Mogul. Returning with a full heart and, I doubt 
not, a full pocket as well, he is too impatient to 
wait for the sailing of a middle-sized packet for 
Falmouth or Plymouth, he must needs take a pas- 
sage in the first thing shaped like a boat that meant 
to come round the Lizard, and this was a ketch of 
some ten ton, that opened every seam before the 
seas that the hurricane of yesterday raised up in 
the Channel, and so got swamped when trying to 
run ashore on some soft ground. Nelly’s ship- 
master, Mr. Snowdon, must have been struggling 
in the water for something like four hours, and 
was washed up, well-nigh at the very door of the 
young woman’s cottage, and so — well, you know 
more of the remainder of the story than doth any 
living man — not even excepting the Captain him- 
self.” 

“ And the young woman — have you heard how 
she received her lover? ” asked Wesley. 

“ Ah, that is the point at which Rumour be- 
comes, for a marvel, discreetly silent,” replied 
Hartwell. “ I suppose it is taken for granted that 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 295 


the theme has been dealt with too frequently by 
the poets to have need to be further illustrated by 
a fisherman’s daughter. Take my word for it, 
sir, the young woman, despite her abundance of 
womanly traits, is a good and kind and true girl 
at heart. She hath not been spoiled by the edu- 
cation which she received as companion to the 
Squire’s young ladies.” 

“ That was my judgment, too,” said Wesley. 
“ I pray that the man will be a good husband to 
her. His worldly position as the master of an 
East Indiaman is an excellent one.” 

“ He will make her a very suitable husband,” 
said Hartwell. “ I must confess that I have had 
my fears for her. She is possessed of such good 
looks — a dangerous possession for such a young 
woman, sir. These, coupled with her intimate as- 
sociation with the Squire’s daughters, might have 
led her into danger. A less sensible girl would 
certainly be likely to set her cap at someone a good 
deal above her in station — a dangerous thing — 
very dangerous ! ” 

“ No doubt, sir. And now you are disposed to 
think that her happiness is, humanly speaking, 
assured? ” 

“ I think that she is a very fortunate young 
woman, and that the man is even more fortunate 
still. Old Polwhele, in his whimsical way, how- 
ever, protests that he wishes the man whose intent 
it is to rob him of his daughter, had got drowned. 
He grumbled about the part you played in the mat- 
ter — he was very whimsical. ‘ What, sir,’ he grum- 
bled to me just now, ‘ is Mr. Wesley not content 
with looking after our souls — is he turning his at- 
tention to our bodies as well? ’ Old Polwhele has 
a nimble wit.” 


296 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ It was not I, but John Rennet, who was for- 
tunate enough to restore the man: he treated him 
altogether skilfully, the revenue patrol-man told 
me.” 

Hartwell threw up his hands in surprise. Then 
he frowned. He was plainly puzzled for some time, 
At last he said : 

“Mr. Wesley, if Rennet saved that man’s life he 
must have stumbled on him while it was yet dark — 
too dark to let him see the man’s face.” 

“ Rut how should he know who the man was, 
even if he had seen his face? ” 

“ He was acquainted with Mr. Snowdon at Rris- 
tol, and his grievance was that if Snowdon had not 
appeared, the girl would have accepted his own 
suit. Oh, yes ; it must have been too dark for him 
to see the man’s face, or it would have gone hardly 
with the poor fellow.” 

There was a considerable pause before Wesley 
said : 

“You are right; it was too dark to allow him 
to recognise the man’s features. Has he been seen 
at the village during the morning? ” 

“ If he has I heard nothing of it,” replied Hart- 
well, “ it might be as well to say a word of warn- 
ing to Mr. Snowdon respecting him; he is a mad- 
man, and dangerous. You do not forget the mad 
thing he said about you on Sunday, sir? ” 

“ I have not forgotten it,” said Wesley in a low 
voice. “ I have not forgotten it. I think that I 
shall set out upon my journey this afternoon.” 

The pause that he made between his sentences 
was so slight as to suggest that they were actually 
connected — that there was some connection be- 
tween the thing that Rennet had said and his own 
speedy departure. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 297 


His host, who was in good spirits after his walk 
in the early sunshine, gave a laugh and asked him 
in no spirit of gravity if he felt that it was neces- 
sary for him to fly lest Captain Snowdon should 
develop the same spirit of jealousy that had made 
Bennet fit for Bedlam. 

Wesley shook his head and smiled. 

“ Need I ask your pardon for a pointless jest, 
sir? ” cried Hartwell. “ Nay, dear sir and brother, 
I hope you will find good reason for remaining with 
us for a few days still. You have had a trying 
time since you came, Mr. Wesley; and I do not 
think that you are fit to set out on so rude a 
journey.” 

“ I confess that I feel somewhat exhausted,” said 
Wesley, “ but I have hope that an hour or two in 
the saddle will restore me.” 

Hartwell did his best to persuade him to recon- 
cile himself to the idea of staying in the neighbour- 
hood for at least another day, but without success. 

“ I must go. I feel that I must go, grateful 
though I be to you for your offer of hospitality,” 
said Wesley. 

“ Then I will not say a further word. If it be 
a matter of feeling with you, I do not feel justified 
in asking you to change your intention,” said Hart- 
well. “ I shall give orders as to your horse without 
delay.” 

But the horse was not needed that day, nor was it 
likely to be needed for some time to come, for within 
the hour after breakfast Mr. Wesley was overcome 
by a shivering fit and compelled to take to his bed. 
It became plain that he had caught a chill — the 
wonder was that it had not manifested itself sooner, 
considering that he had sat for so long the day 
before in his saturated garments, and the very 


298 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


trying morning that he had had. Mr. Hartwell, 
who had some knowledge of medicine, and a con- 
siderable experience of the simpler maladies to 
which his miners were subject, found that he was 
more than a little feverish, and expressed the 
opinion that he would not be able to travel for a 
full week. Wesley, who, himself, knew enough 
about the treatment of disease to allow of his writ- 
ing a book on the subject, agreed with him, that 
it was not necessary to send for a physician, who 
might possibly differ from both of them in his 
diagnosis. 

For three days he remained in bed, and in spite 
of the fact that he would have nothing to say to 
the Peruvian bark which his host so strongly rec- 
ommended, his feverish tendency gradually abated, 
and by careful nursing he was able to sit up in 
his room by the end of a week. 

In the meantime he had many visitors, though he 
refrained from seeing any of them. His host told 
him that Miller Pendelley, Jake Pullsford, and Hal 
Holmes had driven more than once from Ruthal- 
lion when they heard of his illness; but of course 
the earliest and most constant of the enquirers 
after his health were Nelly Polwhele and her lover. 
Mr. Hartwell told him how greatly distressed they 
were, and perhaps it was natural, he added, that 
the girl should be the one who laid the greatest 
emphasis upon the fact that they were the cause 
of Mr. Wesley’s suffering. She was undoubtedly 
a sweet and unselfish girl, Hartwell said; and he 
feared that Captain Snowdon thought that she was 
making too great a fuss in referring to the risks 
which he, Wesley, had run to bring her happiness. 
Snowdon, being a man, had not her imagination; 
and besides his life had been made up of running 


'THE LOVE THAT PKEVAILED 299 

risks for the benefit of other people, and he was 
scarcely to be blamed if he took a less emotional 
view of, at least, the incident of Wesley’s finding 
him exhausted on the shore in the early dawn. 

“ I spoke with him to-day,” said Hartwell when 
his guest was able to hear these things, “ and while 
he certainly showed himself greatly concerned at 
your sickness, he grumbled, half humorously, when 
he touched upon the way he was being neglected 
by the young woman. ‘ I am being hardly treated, 
sir,’ he said. ‘ What is a simple master-mariner 
at best alongsides a parson with a persuasive voice? 
But when the parson adds on to his other qualities 
the dash and derring-do of a hero it seems to me 
that a plain man had best get into his boat, if so 
be that he have one, and sail away — it boots not 
whither, so long as he goes. Oh, ay, sir, I allow 
that your Mr. Wesley hath made short work of me.’ 
Those were his words; and though they were fol- 
lowed by an earnest enquiry after your health, I 
could see that he would as lief that he owed his 
life to a more ordinary man.” 

“ If I had not been overtaken by this sickness 
he would have had no cause for complaint,” said 
Wesley. After a pause he touched with caution 
upon a matter over which he had been thinking for 
some time. 

“ Mr. Snowdon heard nothing about a rival other 
than myself in the young woman’s regard? ” he 
said. 

“ Oh, not he,” replied Hartwell quickly. “ Snow- 
don is not the fellow to listen to all that the gossips 
may say about Madam Nelly’s liking for admira- 
tion — he knows well that so pretty a thing will be 
slandered, even when she shows herself to be wisely 
provident by seeking to have two strings to her 


300 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


bow. But, indeed, whatever her weakness may 
have been in the past, she hath been a changed girl 
since you first came hither. Captain Snowdon has 
no rival but yourself, sir, and I am certain that 
the honest fellow would not for the world that the 
young woman abated aught of her gratitude to 
you. He has too large a heart to harbour any 
thought so unworthy of a true man.” 

“ God forbid that anything should come between 
them and happiness,” said Wesley. 

“ ’Tis all unlikely,” said his host. “ He must 
see that her love for him must be in proportion to 
her gratitude to you for having done all that you 
have done for him. If she did not love him dearly 
she would have no need to be half so grateful to 
you.” 

Wesley said nothing more on this point. He had 
not forgotten what Nelly had confided to him and 
the counsel which he had given her just before the 
hurricane had cut short their conversation on the 
cliffs. She had told him her story, confessing that 
the man to whom she had given her promise was 
less dear to her now that she was in daily expecta- 
tion of meeting him after the lapse of a year than 
he had been when they had parted ; and he had de- 
fined, in no doubtful language, the direction in 
which her duty lay. 

For the rest of the time that they were together 
neither he nor she had made any reference to this 
matter; but he had not ceased to think upon it. 
After what Mr. Hartwell had said he felt reassured. 
He had brought himself to feel that he could only 
be happy if the girPs happiness were assured ; and 
he believed that this could only be accomplished 
by her keeping the promise which she had given 
to a man who was worthy of her. However she 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 301 


might have fancied that her love had waned or 
turned in another direction during the year they 
had been parted, he was convinced that it would 
return, as true and as fresh as before, with the 
return of Captain Snowdon. 

All that Hartwell had said bore him out in this 
view which he was disposed to take of the way of 
this maid with the man. Hartwell was a man of 
judgment and observation, and if there had been 
any division between the two people in whom they 
were interested, he would undoubtedly have no- 
ticed it. He had described the grievance of which 
Snowdon had complained in a humorous way ; and 
Wesley knew that if the man felt that he had a 
grievance of the most grievous sort that can fall 
upon a man, he would not have referred to it in 
such a spirit. 

And then the day came when Wesley was able 
to talk, without being hushed by his hospitable 
friend, of mounting his horse and resuming his 
journey in the west. He had many engagements, 
and was getting daily more anxious to fulfil them 
before the summer should be over. 

“ If it rested with me, sir,” said Hartwell, “ I 
would keep you here for another month and feel 
that I was the most favoured of men; but in this 
matter I dare not be selfish. I know what, with 
God’s blessing, you seek to accomplish, and I feel 
that to stay you from your journey would be an 
offence.” 

“ You have been more than good to me, my 
brother,” said Wesley. “ And now in parting from 
you, I do not feel as did the Apostle Paul when 
leaving those friends of his who sorrowed knowing 
that they should see his face no more. I know that 
your sorrow is sincere, because I know how sincere 


302 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


is my own, but if God is good to us we shall all 
meet again after a season.” 

“ That is what we look forward to ; you have 
sown the good seed among us and you must return 
to see what your harvest will be,” said Hartwell. 

They agreed that his horse was to be in readiness 
the next morning. This was at their noon dinner, 
and they had scarcely risen from the table when the 
maidservant entered with the enquiry if Mr. Wes- 
ley would allow Captain Snowdon to have a word 
with him in private. 

“ I was expecting this visitor,” said Hartwell. 
“ It would be cruel for you to go away without 
receiving the man, albeit I think that you would 
rather not hear him at this time. Let me reassure 
you : he will not be extravagant in his acknowl- 
edgment of the debt which he owes to you; he is 
a sailor, and scant of speech.” 

“ Why should I not see him? ” said Wesley. “ I 
am not afraid to face him ! even a demonstration of 
his gratitude. Pray let him be admitted.” 

Very different indeed was the stalwart man who 
was shown into the room from the poor half- 
drowned wretch whom Wesley had helped to carry 
from the shore to the boat. Captain Snowdon 
stood over six feet — a light-haired, blue-eyed man 
who suggested a resuscitated Viking of the milder 
order, brown faced and with a certain indefinable 
expression of shrewd kindliness which might oc- 
casionally take the form of humour and make itself 
felt by a jovial slap on the back that would make 
most men stagger. 

He was shy, and he had plainly been walking 
fast. 

These were the two things that Wesley noticed 
when Hartwell was shaking hands with the man, 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 303 


and the latter had wiped his forehead with a hand- 
kerchief as splendid as the western cloud of a sun- 
set in the Tropics — a handkerchief that seemed a 
floating section of the Empire of the Great Mogul 
— dazzling in red and yellow and green — a wonder 
of the silk loom. 

“ You and Mr. Wesley have already met, Mr. 
Snowdon,” said Hartwell with a smile, and forth- 
with quitted the room. 

Captain Snowdon looked after him rather wist- 
fully. He seemed to be under the impression that 
Mr. Hartwell had deserted him. Then he glanced 
with something of surprise in the direction of 
Wesley, and was apparently surprised to see his 
hand stretched out in greeting. He took the hand 
very gingerly and with nothing of a seaman's 
bluffness or vigour. 

“ Seeing you at this time, Captain Snowdon, 
makes me have a pretty conceit of myself,” said 
Wesley. “ Yes, sir, I feel inclined to boast that 
I was one of the four who bore you from the high 
beach to the boat — I would boast of the fact only 
that I know I should never be believed. You do 
not seem to have suffered by your mishap.” 

“ Thank you, sir, I am a man that turns the 
corner very soon in matters of that sort, and then 
I race ahead,” replied the master-mariner. 

“ You have become accustomed to such accidents, 
sir,” said Wesley. 

“ Ay, sir, the salt sea and me have ever been 
friends, and more than once we have had a friendly 
tussle together, but we bear no malice therefor, 
neither of us — bless your heart, none whatever,” 
said Snowdon. “ Why, the sea is my partner in 
trade — the sea and the wind, we work together. 
But you, Mr. Wesley, I grieve to see you thus, sir, 


304 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


knowing that ’twas on my account. What if you’d 
been finished off this time — wouldn’t the blame 
fall on me? Shouldn’t I be looked on as your 
murderer? ” 

“ I cannot see on what principle you should, sir,” 
said Wesley. “ In the first place the chill from 
which I have now, by the blessing of Heaven, fully 
recovered, was not due to my having been one of 
the four men who carried you down the beach, 
though I should have no trouble in getting anyone 
to believe that I suffered from exhaustion. No, 
Mr. Snowdon, I had contracted the complaint 
before I was fortunate enough to come upon you in 
my early morning’s walk.” 

“ Anyway, sir, you earned my gratitude ; though 
indeed, I feel as shy as a school miss to mention 
such a word in your presence. If I know aught of 
you, Mr. Wesley, and I think that I can take the 
measure of a man whether he be a man or a parson, 
if I know aught of you, sir, I repeat, you would 
be as uneasy to hear me talk of gratitude as I 
should be to make an offer to talk of the same.” 

“You are right in that respect, Mr. Snowdon. 
Between us — men that understand each other — 
there need be no protestation of feeling.” 

“ Give me your hand, sir ; you have just said 
what I should like to say. I feel that you know 
what I feel — you know that if there was any way 
for me to prove my gratitude ” 

“ Ah, you have said the word again, and I un- 
derstood that it was to be kept out of our con- 
versation. But I am glad that you said so much, 
for it enables me to say that you have the means 
of showing your gratitude to Heaven for your 
preservation, and I know that you will not neglect 
such means. You will be a good husband to Nelly 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 305 


Polwliele — that is the way by which you will show 
how you appreciate the blessing of life ! ” 

Captain Snowdon’s face became serious — almost 
gloomy — as gloomy as the face of such a man can 
become. He made no reply for a few moments. 
He crossed the room and looked out of the window. 
Once more he pulled out his handkerchief and 
mopped his brow with that bit of the gorgeous 
Orient. 

Then he turned to Wesley, saying: 

“ Mr. Wesley, sir, I have come to you at this 
time to talk about Nelly Polwliele, if I may make 
so bold.” 

“ I can hear a great deal said about Nelly Pol- 
whele so long as it is all that is good,” said Wesley. 

“ I am not the man to say aught else,” said 
Snowdon. “ Only — well, sir, the truth is I don’t 
quite know what to make of Nelly.” 

“ Make her your happy wife, Captain Snowdon,” 
said Wesley. 

“ That’s what I look forward to, sir ; but she is 
not of the same way of thinking, worse luck ! ” 

“ You cannot mean that she — she — what, sir, did 
not she give you her promise a year ago? ” 

“ That she did, sir ; but that’s a year ago. Oh, 
Mr. Wesley, I believe that all of her sex are more 
or less of a puzzle to a simple man, and in matters 
of love all men are more or less simple, but Nelly 
is more of a puzzle than them all put together.” 

“ How so? I have ever found her straightfor- 
ward and natural — all that a young woman should 
be.” 

“Ay, sir; but you have not been in love with 
her.” 

Wesley looked at him for a moment or two with- 
out a word. Then he said : 


306 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ Pray proceed, sir.” 

“ The truth is, Mr. Wesley, the girl no longer 
loves me as she did, and all this time my love for 
her has been growing,” said Snowdon. “ Why, 
sir, she as good as confessed it to me no later than 
yesterday, when I taxed her with being changed. 
‘ I must have another year,’ she said. ‘ I cannot 
marry you now. ’Twould be cruel to forsake my 
father and mother,’ says she. You no longer 
love me, or you would not talk like that,’ says I, 
and she hung her head. It was a clear minute be- 
fore she said, ‘ That is not the truth, dear. How 
could I help loving you when I have given you my 
promise. All I ask is that you should not want me 
to marry you until I am sure of myself — another 
year,’ says she. Now, Mr. Wesley, you are a par- 
son, but you know enough of the affairs of mankind 
to know what all of this means — I know what it 
means, sir; it means that another man has come 
between us. You can easily understand, Mr. Wes- 
ley, that a well-favoured young woman, that has 
been educated above her station, should have her 
fancies, and maybe set her affections on someone 
that has spoken a word or two of flattery in her 
ear.” 

“ I can scarce believe that of her, Mr. Snowdon. 
But she was at the Bath a few months ago, and 
perhaps — Mr. Snowdon, do you think that any 
words of mine — any advice to her — would have 
effect? ” 

The sailor’s eyes gleamed ; he struck his left palm 
with his right fist. 

“ Why, sir, that’s the very thing that I came 
hither to beg of you,” he cried. “ I know in what 
esteem she holds you, Mr. Wesley; and I said to 
myself yesterday when I sat on the crags trying 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 307 

to worry out the day’s work so that I might arrive 
at the true position of the craft that I’m a-trying 
to bring into haven — says I, ‘ ’Tis trying to caulk 
without oakum to hope to prevail against a young 
woman that has a fancy that she doesn’t know her 
own mind. But in this case if there’s anyone 
living that she will listen to ’tis Mr. Wesley.’ 
Those was my words.” 

“ I cannot promise that I shall prevail with her ; 
but I have confidence that she will at least hearken 
to me,” said Wesley. 

“ No fear about that, sir,” cried the other, almost 
joyfully. He took a step or two toward the door, 
having picked up his hat, which he stood twirling 
for a few moments. Then he slowly turned and 
faced Wesley once again. 

“ Mr. Wesley,” he said in a low voice. “ Mind 
this, sir : I would not have you do anything in this 
matter unless you feel that ’twould be for the good 
of the girl. ’Tis of the girl we have to think in 
the first place — the girl and her happiness. We 
must keep that before us, mustn’t we, sir? So I 
ask of you as a man of judgment and wisdom 
and piety to abstain from saying a word to her 
in my favour unless you are convinced that I am 
the man to make her happy. Look at me, sir. I 
tell you that I will not have the girl cajoled into 
marrying a man simply because she has given him 
her promise. What! should she have a life of 
wretchedness simply because a year ago she did not 
know her own mind?” 

“ Captain Snowdon, give me leave to tell you 
that you are a very noble fellow,” said Wesley. 
“ The way you have acted makes me more certain 
than ever that Nelly Polwhele is the most fortunate 
young woman in Cornwall, no matter what she may 


308 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


think of the matter. Since I have heard you, sir, 
what before was a strong intention has become a 
duty. Hasten to Nelly and send her hither.” 

The man went to the door quickly, but when 
there he hesitated. 

“ To be sure ’twould be better if you was to 
speak to her without her knowing that I had been 
with you ; but we cannot help that ; we are not try- 
ing to trick the girl into keeping her promise,” 
said he. 

“The knowledge that you have been with me 
would make no difference to her,” said Wesley. 
“ She knows that I would not advise her against 
my judgment, to please even the man who, I know, 
loves her truly as man could love woman.” 

Captain Snowdon’s broad back filled up the 
doorway in an instant. 


CHAPTER XXV 


John Wesley sat alone in the room, thinking his 
thoughts. They were not unhappy, though tinged 
with a certain mournfulness at times. The mourn- 
ful tinge was due to the reflection that once more 
he must reconcile himself to live alone in the world. 
For a brief space he had had a hope that it might 
be given to him to share the homely joys of his 
fellow-men. He now saw that it was not to be; 
and he bowed his head to the decree of the Will 
which he knew could not err. 

Alone? How could such a reflection have come 
to him? How could he who sought to walk through 
the world with the Divine companionship of the 
One to whom he trusted to guide his steps aright 
feel lonely or alone? 

This was the thought that upheld him now. He 
could feel the hand that he knew was ever stretched 
out to him. He touched it now as he had touched 
it before, and he heard the voice that said : 

“ I have called ye friends.” 

He was happy — as happy as the true man should 
be w T ho knows that the woman whom he loves is 
going to be made happy. He now perceived that 
everything had been ordered for the best, this 
best being the ultimate happiness of the woman 
whom he loved. He now saw that although he 
might strive to bring happiness to her, he might 
never succeed in doing so. Even if she had loved 
him her quick intelligence could not fail to whisper 

309 


310 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


to her what the people around them would be say- 
ing out loud — that John Wesley had married the 
daughter of a humble fisherman of Cornwall, and 
that that was no match for him to make. She would 
hear it said that John Wesley, who was ever anx- 
ious for the dignity of the Church to be maintained, 
had shown himself to be on the level with my lord’s 
greasy, sottish chaplain, who had showed himself 
ready to marry my lady’s maid when commanded 
to do so by his master, when circumstances had 
made such an act desirable. 

Would such a young woman as Nelly Polwhele 
be happy when now and again she should hear these 
whispers and the consciousness was forced upon 
her that John Wesley was believed to have made a 
fool of himself? 

But even to assume what her thoughts would be 
was to assume that she had loved him, and this she 
had never done. He was convinced that she had 
never ceased to love the man to whom she had given 
her promise. To be sure, she had told him when 
they had been together on the cliffs that someone 
else had come into her life. But that he believed to 
be only a passing fancy of hers. It was impossible 
that such a young woman, having given her prom- 
ise to so fine a fellow as Captain Snowdon, should 
allow his place in her heart to be taken by any- 
one else. 

He wondered if the Squire had a son as well as 
daughters. Nelly had talked to him often enough 
about the young ladies, but not a word had she 
breathed about a young gentleman. If there was 
a son, would it be beyond the limits of experience 
that this village girl should be captivated by his 
manners — was it beyond the limits of experience 
that the young man might have been fascinated 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 311 

by the beauty of the girl and so have talked to her 
as such young men so often did, in a strain of flat- 
tery that flattered the poor things so that they 
were led to hope that an offer of marriage was 
approaching? 

He resolved to make enquiry on this point from 
Nelly herself should she still maintain that her 
affection had changed. But meantime 

His lucubrations were interrupted by the sudden 
return of Captain Snowdon. He was plainly in 
a condition of great excitement. His coat was 
loose and his neckerchief was flying. 

“ We are too late, Mr. Wesley,” he cried. “ We 
are too late. The girl has given both of us the slip. 
I called at the cottage to fetch her hither. I did 
not find her at home. This is what was put into 
my hand.” 

He thrust out a piece of paper with writing 
upon it. 

“ 1 cannot stay — I dare not stay any longer 
where I am forced to see you every day , and am thus 
reminded of my promise which I know I cannot 
now keep. Please try not to follotv me; ’twould he 
of no use. I must he apart from you before I make 
up my mind. I am very unhappy , and I know that 
1 am ?nost unhappy because I have to give pain to 
one who is the best of men . 

“ Nelly:’ 

“ You have read it? ” cried Snowdon. “ I had no 
notion that her whimsies would carry her so far. 
Oh, she is but a girl after all — I tell you that she 
is no more than a girl.” 

“ She is a girl, and I think that she is the best 
that lives, to be a blessing to a good man’s life,” 


312 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


said Wesley, returning the letter to his trembling 
hand. 

“ The best? The best? She has made a fool of 
the man who would have died to save her from the 
least hurt, and you call her the best ! ” he cried, 
walking to and fro excitedly, crumpling up the let- 
ter with every stride. 

“ She is the best,” said Wesley. “ Sir, cannot 
you see that those lines were written by a woman 
who is anxious to be true to herself? Cannot you 
see that her sole fear is that she may do an injustice 
to the man who loves her? ” 

“ You see things, sir, that none other can see ; I 
am but a plain man, Mr. Wesley, and I can see 
naught in this letter save the desire of a fickle 
young woman to rid herself of a lover of whom she 
has grown weary. Well, she has succeeded — she 
has succeeded ! She exhorts me not to follow her. 
She need not have been at the trouble to do so: I 
have no intention of following her, even if I knew 
whither she has gone. Have you any guess as to 
the direction she has taken? Not that I care — I 
tell you, sir, I have no desire to follow her. Who 
do you suspect is her lover? ” 

“ Mr. Snowdon,” said Wesley, “ her lover stands 
before me in this room. The poor child has had her 
doubts, as any true girl must have when she thinks 
how serious a step is marriage, and the best way 
that you can dissipate such doubts is to show to 
her that you have none. ? Tis left for you to prove 
yourself a true man in this matter, Captain Snow- 
don, and I know that, being a true man, you will 
act as a true man should act.” 

“ I know not what you would suggest, sir, but I 
can promise you that if you hint that I should seek 
to follow her, you make a mistake,” said Snowdon. 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 313 


“ She may go w hithersoever she pleases. I have no 
mind to be made a fool of a second time by her. I 
have some self-respect still remaining, let me tell 
you, Mr. Wesley.” 

“ You may be sure that no advice to sacrifice it 
will come from me, sir,” said Wesley. u Oh, Mr. 
Snowdon, did not you come to me an hour ago to 
ask me to be your friend in this matter? Did 
you not ask me to give my advice to the young 
woman of whom w r e have been speaking? Was not 
that because you believed that my advice w T ould be 
right? ” 

“ I know T that it w T ould have been right, Mr. Wes- 
ley; but now T ” 

“ If you could trust to me to give her good advice, 
w r hy cannot you prove that this w^as your hope, by 
hearkening to the advice w T hich I am ready to give 
to you? ” 

The big man, wdio w r as standing in the middle of 
the room, had made several passionate attempts to 
speak, but none of them could be called successful. 
When Wesley had put his last question, he tried to 
frame a reply. He put out an arm w T ith an uplifted 
forefinger and his lips began to move. Not a word 
w T ould come. He looked at Wesley straight in the 
face for a long time, and then he suddenly turned 
away, dropped into the nearest chair, and bent his 
head forward until his chin w r as on his hand, and he 
w r as gazing at the floor. 

Wesley let him be. He knew something of men 
and their feelings, as w T ell as their failings. 

There w r as a long silence before the man arose 
and came to him, saying in a low^ voice : 

“ Mr. Wesley, I will trust to your judgment. I 
will do w hatsoever you bid me.” 

Wesley grasped him by the hand. 


314 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


“ I had no doubt of you, my friend,” he said. “ I 
felt that any man whom Nelly Polwhele loved ” 

“ Ay, loved — loved ! ” interjected Snowdon. 

“ Loves — loves — in love there is no past tense,” 
said Wesley. “ She loved you, and she loves you 
still — she will love you forever. You will come 
with me, and I know that mine will be the great 
happiness of bringing you together. What greater 
happiness could come to such as I than this which, 
by the grace of Heaven, shall be mine? ” 

“ She gave you her confidence? You know 
whither she has fled? ” 

Wesley shook his head. 

“ She told me nothing; remember that I have not 
seen her since you returned to her,” he said. “ But 
I think that I can say whither she has gone. ’Tis 
but six or seven miles from here. Have you heard 
of Ruthallion Mill?” 

The mariner struck the palm of his left hand 
with his right fist. The blow had weight enough 
in it to make the casements quiver. 

“ Wherefore could I not have thought of the 
Mill?” he cried. “I was fool enough to let a 
thought of Squire Trevelyan’s Court come into my 
mind.” 

“ I have no doubt that we shall find her at the 
Mill,” said Wesley. “ The miller has been a second 
father to her, and, besides, he has a daughter. ’Tis 
to friends such as these that she would go for suc- 
cour and sympathy in her hour of trouble.” 

Captain Snowdon mused for a moment. 

“ How do I know that they will be on my side, 
Mr. Wesley? ” he asked. “ They may reckon that 
she has been ill-used — that she has a right to change 
her mind and to choose whomsoever she will.” 

“ Mr. Snowdon,” said Wesley, “ it doth not need 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 315 

that one should be possessed of a judgment beyond 
that of ordinary people to decide the right" and 
the wrong of this affair in which we all take a 
huge interest. Come, sir, let us prepare for the 
best and not for the worst. AVliat, are you a mas- 
ter-mariner and yet have not learned that the best 
way to stamp out a mutiny is by a display of 
promptitude. Let us lose no time over the discus- 
sion of what the result of our action may be — let us 
act at once.” 

He went to the door. 

“ Nay, sir; but you are a sick man — how will you 
make this journey? ” said Snowdon. 

“ I am no longer a sick man,” said Wesley. “ I 
would not give a second thought to the setting out 
upon a journey to the Mill on foot. But there will 
be no need for this. Mr. Hartwell will lend us his 
light cart; it will hold three.” 

“ Three? But we are but two, sir.” 

“ Ay, Mr. Snowdon — only two for the journey to 
the Mill; but we shall need an extra seat for our 
return.” 

A few words to Mr. Hartwell and his easy run- 
ning waggon was at the door. The drive through 
the valley of the Lana on this lovely afternoon had 
an exhilarating effect upon Captain Snowdon, for 
Wesley took care that their conversation should be 
on topics far removed from their mission at this 
time. He wished to be made acquainted with his 
companion’s views respecting many matters of the 
Orient, Was it possible that the Jesuits had sent 
missionaries to the Indies and even to China? Had 
Captain Snowdon had any opportunity of noting 
the result of their labours? Had Captain Snowdon 
learned if the Jesuits discountenanced any of the 


316 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


odious native customs such as the burning of 
widows — the throwing of infants into the sacred 
river of Ganges? Or did the missioners content 
themselves with simple preaching? 

The journey to the Mill was all too short to allow 
of Captain Snowdon’s answering more than a few 
of the questions put to him by the discreet Mr. Wes- 
ley, and it was not until they were turning down 
the little lane that the ship-master came to an 
abrupt end of his replies, and put the nervous ques- 
tion to his companion : 

“ Shall we find her here, or have we come on a 
wild-goose chase? ” 

In a few minutes they were in her presence — al- 
most in her presence; they caught sight of her fly- 
ing through the inner door when they entered the 
Mill room. 

The miller, in his shirtsleeves and wearing his 
working apron, gave a loud laugh and shouted 
“ Stop thief ! ” but his daughter and her mother 
were looking grave and tearful. They moved to 
the door by which Nelly had made her escape, but 
checked themselves and returned to greet Wesley 
and Snowdon. They hoped that the sun had not 
been overwarm during the drive through the val- 
ley, and that Mr. Wesley had fully recovered from 
his sickness. 

The miller came to the point with his usual 
directness. 

“ You have come to carry the girl home with you, 
I doubt not? ” he said ; and forthwith his wife and 
daughter made for the door. 

Captain Snowdon looked ill at ease. He glanced 
toward the outer door. 

“ How oft have I not told her that a judgment 
would fall upon her for the heartburnings that she 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 317 

brought about — all through her kindness o’ heart? ” 
continued the miller. “ Poor daughter ! But they 
all go through the same course, Captain, of that you 
may be assured, albeit I doubt not that you think 
that so dread a case as yours has never been known 
i’ the world before. When the marriage day draws 
nigh, the sweetest and the surest of them all has a 
misgiving. Don’t be too ready to blame them, sir. 
The wonder is that when she sees so many errors 
hurried into under the name of marriage, any maid 
can bring herself to take upon her the bondage.” 

Captain Snowdon nodded sideways and looked 
shyly down. 

“ Nature is stronger than experience, miller,” 
said Wesley. “ I am bold enough to think that you 
could give Mr. Snowdon a pinch of your experience 
in your garden, after you have told Nelly that I 
seek a word with her here. I am pretty certain 
that I shall have completed my task before your 
experiences as a married man are exhausted.” 

“ Right, sir,” said the miller. “ Captain, I show 
you the door in no inhospitable spirit. I’ll join 
you in the turning of a pinion.” 

Captain Snowdon seemed pleased to have a 
chance of retiring, returning to the open air; he 
hurried out by one door, while the miller went 
through the other and shouted for Nelly. His 
wife’s remonstrance with him for his unfeeling 
boisterousness reached Wesley, who was now alone 
in the room. 

He was not kept long waiting. Nelly entered, the 
miller leading her by the hand, and then walking 
slowly to the outer door. 

“ My dear, you know why I have come hither,” 
said Wesley, taking her hand in both of his own. 
“ You asked for my counsel once, and I gave it to 


318 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


yon. I could only give it to you at that time in a 
general way. I had not seen the man to whom you 
had given your promise; but having seen him, and 
knowing what manner of man he is — and I am 
something of a judge of a man’s character — I feel 
that I would be lacking in my duty to you, dear 
child, if I were to refrain from coming to you to 
plead for — for your own happiness.” 

“ Have I forfeited all your esteem by my be- 
haviour, sir? ” she cried, still holding his hand and 
looking at him with piteous eyes. “ Do you think 
of me as a light-minded girl, because I confessed to 
you — all that I did confess?” 

“ I have never ceased to think of you with affec- 
tion,” he said. 

“ Ah ! the affection of a man who is esteemed by 
all the world, for a poor girl who touched the hem 
of his life, and then passed away never to be seen 
by him again.” 

She spoke in a curious tone of reproach. He 
looked at her, asking himself what she meant. 

“ Child, child, you little know how I have thought 
of you,” he said slowly. “ Do you believe that the 
path of my life has been so gilded with sunshine 
that I take no count of such hours as we passed 
together when we walked through the valley, side 
by side — when we sat together on the cliffs? ” 

She gave a little cry of joy and caught up his 
hand and kissed it. 

He was startled. He turned his eyes upon her. 
She was rosy red. Her head was bowed. 

In that instant he read her secret. 

There was a long silence. Only occasionally a 
little sob came from her. 

“ Child,” he said in a low voice. “ Child, you 
have been very dear to me.” 


THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 319 


She looked up with streaming eyes. 

“ Say those words again — again,” she cried in 
faltering tones. 

“ They are true words, my dear,” he said. “ The 
life which it has been decreed that I shall lead must 
be .one of loneliness — what most men and all women 
call loneliness. Such joys of life as love and mar- 
riage and a home can never be for me. I have given 
myself over body and soul to the work of my Mas- 
ter, and I look on myself as separate forever from 
all the tenderness of life. They are not for me.” 

“ Why should they not be for you? You have 
need of them, Mr. Wesley? ” 

“Why should they not be for me, do you ask?” 
he cried. “ They are not for me, because I have 
been set to do a work that cannot be done without 
a complete sacrifice of self. Because I have found 
by the bitterest experience, that so far as I myself 
am concerned — I dare not speak for another — 
these things war against the Spirit. If I thought 
it possible that a woman should be led to love me 
I would never see her again.” 

“ Oh, do not say that — do not say that ! ” she 
said piteously. 

“ I do say it,” he cried. “ Never — never — never 
would I do so great an injustice to a woman as to 
marry her. I tell you that I would think of it as a 
curse and not a blessing. I know that I have been 
appointed to do a great work, and I am ready, with 
God’s help, to trample beneath my feet everything 
of life that would turn my thoughts from that work. 
The words are sounding in my ear day and night — 
day and night, * If any man come to Me and hate 
not his father and mother and wife and children 
and brethren and sisters — yea, and his own life 
also, he cannot be my Disciple.’ ” 


320 THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED 


He stood away from her, speaking fervently. His 
face, pale by reason of his illness, had become paler 
still : but his resolution had not faltered, his voice 
had not broken. 

She had kept her eyes fixed upon him. The ex- 
pression upon her face was one of awe. 

She shuddered when he took a step toward her 
and held out a thin white hand to her. She touched 
it slowly with her own. 

“ Nelly,” he said, “ there is a joy in self-sacrifice 
beyond any that the world can give. I look on you 
as one of my children — one of that Household of 
Faith who have told me that they had learned the 
Truth from my lips. My child, if you were called 
on to make any great sacrifice for the Truth, would 
you not make it? Although I may seem an austere 
man to you, I do not live so far apart from those 
who are dear to me as to be incapable of sympa- 
thising with them in all matters of their daily life. 
I think you knew that or you would not have con- 
fessed to me that you fancied your love had suffered 
a change.” 

She rose from her chair, and passed a hand 
wearily across her face. 

“ A fancy — it was a fancy — a dream — oh, the 
most foolish dream that ever a maiden had,” she 
said. “ Has it ever been known that a maiden 
fancied she loved the shadow of a dream when all 
the time her heart was given to a true man? ” 

“ Dear child, have you awakened? ” he asked. 

“ My dreaming time is past,” she replied. 

“ I may bid Captain Snowdon to enter? ” he said. 

“Not yet — not yet — I must be alone; I will see 
him in another hour.” 

He kissed her on the forehead, and went with un- 
faltering feet into the sunshine. 





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